There is nothing unique about phase array antennas, or anything challenging about applying them to the GSM band. It is probably unique since the technology is only required when providing farmers mobile phone access close to large sensitive radio astronomy telescopes.

If those guys have come up with a technology that will eliminate the interference, I would be really impressed. I can't imagine they will get more than 30-40dB down from the "omnidirectional" base station antennas. MeerKAT (let alone the SKA) will be an extremely sensitive instrument, able to "detect a cell phone on the moon", so maybe you wont saturate your receivers, but you always going to see and will always need to deal with it if you going to be looking comic signatures in your mobile bands. I think the SKA is a great project and hosting it in Africa would be great for national pride. However I am yet to see a technical thesis on the clear social economic benefits of hosting a large radio telescope in Africa. Unfortunately I have only heard the bold claims of a few science academics and politicians; (which have been rather amusing); no hard facts. It may have been better to simply invest in the communication infrastructure and focus our efforts on developing solutions for green energy. Now that has "obvious" benefits.

I am not quite sure how this will influence the bid? It seems to be yet another PR attempt to try and convince the uninformed of the benefits of a R2m investment in SKA SA and MeerKAT.