International law firm Ashurst advised Cell C Ltd (Cell C), South Africa's third largest mobile phone operator, on its far-reaching roaming agreement with MTN South Africa, the South African subsidiary of MTN Group Ltd (MTN).

The agreement, an important infrastructure sharing development within the South African telecoms sector, will see MTN providing both 3G and 4G services to Cell C in selected areas, mainly outside of the four major conurbations. The arrangements, which involve no new SIM cards, includes seamless handover for Cell C customers, which means that if someone is on a call that happens to switch from a Cell C tower to a MTN tower, it won’t be dropped. Implementation of the national roaming agreement between the operators will begin next month and the bulk of the services will be transferred within two months. The long-term roaming agreement with MTN is a multibillion-rand deal.

The Ashurst team was led by digital economy partners Amanda Hale and Nick Elverston and counsel Clare Doneley. Cell C's legal team was led by chief legal officer Graham Mackinnon.