Vodacom’s fibre-to-the-home blueprint
Vodacom says it will concentrate on fibre-to-the-business (FTTx) before embarking on a fully fledged home solution.
In an interview with BusinessTech, Vodacom CEO, Shameel Joosub, said: “The sooner we get Neotel, the faster we can accelerate the fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) programme.”
“We are mainly going to focus on fibre-to-the-business, and then expand to fibre-to-the-home.”
“We are going to start it this year,” Joosub said of the group’s FTTH plans.
“So we will do a couple of estates, gain some experience and so on. But effectively we will fast track it and do more next year…it’s definitely part of the three year programme,” he said.
“I think what we need to do first, is capture the fibre-to-the-business first, get some revenue, and get the business to be sustainable first.”
In April, the group said it is actively rolling out fibre in business parks. “We’re currently building the fibre backbones to make this possible,” it said.
On Monday (19 May 2014) Vodacom said it reached an agreement to acquire 100% of the issued share capital in, and shareholder loans against Neotel for a total cash consideration of R7 billion.
Neotel recently told BusinessTech that while it has conducted proof of concept trials related to bringing fibre-to-the-home, its focus remains on the enterprise space.
“Neotel has a strongly focused fibre strategy and have chosen to first focus on the enterprise, office park and CBD areas of the Gauteng, Durban and Cape Town regions,” it said.
The company said it has deployed in excess of 800kms of FTTx fibre in these areas, and has proactively deployed fibre in over 2,000 buildings to date.
Rival operator, MTN, recently announced plans to commercially launch 100Mbps FTTH services in South Africa on 1 June 2014.
MTN said that it demonstrated its FTTH offering to residents of Monaghan Farm, a gated estate located 30km north of Johannesburg, on 12 April 2014.
“MTN is currently rolling out aggressive deployment to high-density urban areas, such as high-end gated communities, boomed-off suburbs and high-rise buildings,” it said in its statement.
Telkom, meanwhile, says that it is on track to roll out FTTH before the end of the year.
More on FTTH
Vodacom readying fibre-to-the-home
MTN fibre-to-the-home product launch date
Neotel outlines fibre-to-the-home strategy
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