MTN clarifies on network freeze

Telecommunication giant MTN has dismissed rumours of a notice emanating from them that people would be unable to make calls, browse the internet, or conduct bank transactions during the election period due to a network freeze.

The company explained in another notice that, they don’t implement changes on their network during critical times to minimise the chances of an outage. “Keeping the network as is, is a common practice in telecom referred to as Network Freeze”, MTN said.

In telecom, it is common to Freeze the Network. During the Network Freeze, any changes over a specific period of time are halted/hold, although it will continue to maintain its network and only the most emergency changes are allowed to implement on the network.

Some mobile network operators implement a freeze on their network during holidays like Eid Festivals, Christmas, Easter, Diwali, Holi,
New Year, Lunar New Year, Golden Week in Japan, Songkran in Thailand, Chinese Festival, End of Year Network Freeze and a few more events.

Apart from the holiday events mentioned above, the mobile operators do freeze their network for a specific time period for MR & HO Data Collection, Traffic Recordings before implementation of some major network changes, which could be: AFOS/IFOS/AFP implementation, Spectrum Re-farming & Rationalization preparation and Implementation

During the freeze, there will be no core works, upgrades, or maintenance are usually allowed which can affect the required changes. The aim is to restrict non-essential activities on the network due to MR & HO Data Collection, Traffic Recordings for FP script generation & implementation.

There may be many more activities that required the network to be freezed for accurate data collection and recordings for smooth implementation of required changes.

An approval from Network Head is usually required to freeze the network with details of allowed and not allowed activities details along with the freeze duration and areas where the freeze is required and then communicate to all the concerned departments/teams about it just to ensure the strict compliance on it.