Few would disagree that the cellphone remains one of the great inventions, credited with revolutionising communication throughout the world.

Few would disagree that the cellphone remains one of the great inventions, credited with revolutionising communication throughout the world.

In fact, the cellphone has become such an integral part of our lives that one wonders how mankind survived without it in the past.

Tempering the euphoria over the advent of the gadget locally in recent years, though, is the growing public frustrations with the poor quality of cellphone calls.

This problem has consistently been more acute during the festive seasons, when the volume of cellphone calls invariably clog the network providers' infrastructure.

The same applies to this festive season.

Sapa reported yesterday that MTN's network had crashed at the weekend, leaving thousands of frustrated subscribers without coverage.

While a spokesman was quoted as saying engineers were working around the clock to fix the fault, concerns about capacity, especially during the festive season, abound. Some Vodacom subscribers also complained about disruptions.

That the three network providers - Vodacom, Cell C and MTN - are aware of the impact their growing number of subscribers have had on their capacity is public knowledge.

What is not immediately clear, though, is what plans they have for dealing with the situation.