Joburg suburb reveals fibre-to-the-home prices

·3 Jun 2014

The Parkhurst Residents and Business Owners Association (PRABOA) says it has nominated Vumatel as its preferred provider to supply fibre to the area.

Last month, residents of Parkhurst put out a request for proposal for Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) vendors to install a fibre network in their neighbourhood.

The adjudication committee reviewed 16 proposals from operators such as MTN, Vodacom, Telkom, Dark Fibre Africa, SA Digital Villages, ATEC, Liquid Telecoms, ClearlineIS, Posix and Cool Ideas.

Security providers Cortac and CSS also submitted proposals.

Vumatel’s proposal included:

A once-off installation fee of R2,500 per household
Line speeds of between 4Mbps and 1000Mbps. The 4mbps line speed will be offered free of charge, with the next line-speed of 50Mbps charged at R499 per month. The 1Gbps option will be offered at R1,299pm. All options have contract terms of 24 months.
Bandwidth can be purchased from a number of competing providers, at an estimated cost of between R2 and R10 per GB depending on usage. Some providers may offer uncapped access.

“Their 4Mbps free option also appealed to us in order to get the community on board. Getting about 20GB of bandwidth on a 4Mbps fibre line for perhaps R150 per month is a no-brainer for the majority of residents,” said Ryan Hawthorne, PRABOA’s technical advisor.

The fibre rollout is expected to take between 6-12 months. An information-sharing session with the community will take place within the next two weeks, Hawthorne said.

A new entrant to the FTTH market, Vumatel is headed up by Niel Schoeman a founder of Conduct Telecommunications SA, which has built over 40 last-mile fibre solutions for business precincts in South Africa and was recently sold to Dark Fibre Africa.