By 
By Craig Palmer, Chief Executive Officer at VAS-X
Africa’s telecoms market is on a strong growth trajectory. Currently valued at $66.61 billion, the entertainment and telecoms sector is projected to reach $86.80 billion by 2030, driven by a young population, increased mobile connectivity, and a rise in digital content consumption.
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This growth is creating new opportunities for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to expand their revenue streams beyond traditional direct-to-consumer services. One of the biggest growth opportunities for MNOs lies in enabling Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs). Through these partnerships, an MNO can monetise its network infrastructure, while MVNOs focus on customer acquisition and brand differentiation in niche markets.
This is only possible with a flexible OSS/BSS system in place. Traditional OSS/BSS systems create barriers to MVNO partnerships. Each MVNO requires its own unique rating plans, billing rules, and CRM configurations to serve their specific customer base effectively. But it would be exceptionally expensive and time-consuming for an MNO to deploy separate systems for each MVNO partner, making these partnerships economically unfeasible.
Multi-tenant OSS/BSS platforms solve this challenge by allowing MNOs to onboard multiple MVNOs as individual tenants within a single system. Each MVNO operates with complete autonomy over their customer experience, pricing strategies, and business rules, while the MNO maintains operational efficiency through centralised infrastructure management.
Extending the model
There are two other key benefits of a multi-tenant approach. Firstly, forward-thinking MNOs are leveraging the same architecture to offer “tenant-as-a-service” solutions to enterprise clients. Large corporations and government entities can operate as dedicated tenants with personalised rating structures, custom customer care workflows, and tailored CRM configurations.
This model transforms the MNO from a simple connectivity provider into a comprehensive telecommunications platform provider. It also opens new revenue streams by allowing MNOs to utilise existing infrastructure investments more efficiently.
Secondly, multi-tenancy addresses the challenges associated by expanding into new geographies. As African carriers, be it mobile operators, fibre providers, or ISPs, expand into new countries, the carrier must establish separate operational systems in each market.
Multi-tenant architectures enable these operators to establish new market entities as tenants on their existing centralised platforms. If, for example, a South African telco expands into Namibia, their Namibian operation becomes a tenant with all the capabilities of a locally deployed system, but managed centrally for optimal cost efficiency.
A multi-tenant approach delivers four key advantages:
Cost optimisation: New tenants can leverage existing system investments rather than requiring separate deployments. Upgrades and customisations benefit all tenants, with costs shared across the platform.
Operational simplicity: Centralised management reduces complexity while maintaining tenant independence and each tenant maintains their unique business rules and customer experience.
Rapid deployment: In competitive markets, speed matters. Multi-tenant platforms can onboard new MVNOs, enterprise tenants, or launch international operations in weeks rather than months, providing crucial first-mover advantages.
Dynamic scalability: As operators add more MVNOs, enterprise clients, or enter additional markets, this shared infrastructure can scale efficiently to meet growing demand.
As Africa’s telecommunications landscape continues to evolve, modern telcos need operational platforms tailored to the complexity and opportunities that come with offering a wide range of services to different kinds of businesses across a range of markets. The operators that embrace multi-tenant OSS/BSS architectures will be best positioned to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive and opportunity-rich market.
