Internet

Vodacom fibre-to-the-business pricing revealed

Staff Writer

 ·17 Sep 2014

Vodacom Business announced the launch of its fibre-to-the-business (FTTB) services in South Africa in a press release issued on Wednesday, 17 September 2014.

The initial rollout phase of Vodacom’s new Broadband Connect Fibre service will see fibre connectivity of up to 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) coming to selected business parks in Gauteng, Cape Town, and Durban.

Vodacom said that its new service means that businesses of all sizes that operate out of business parks will have access to high-speed and high-capacity data connections.

Broadband Connect Fibre uses the latest Passive Optical Network (PON) technology and will give businesses access to online services that were previously only available to large corporate customers.

“These services include video collaboration, voice over internet protocol (VoIP), Hosted PBX, Office365, Cloud Backup, and other data applications,” Vodacom said.

Vodacom said that, since 2008, it has spent more than R2-billion investing in fibre transmission which connects its 10,000+ cellular base stations, which now forms the backbone of this new FTTB service.

“Most people don’t realise it, but underneath every mobile network is a high-speed fixed network connecting the base stations,” said Vuyani Jarana, head of Vodacom Business.

“We’ve invested billions of rands in building our fibre optic network, meaning that we now have the critical mass to offer customers across South Africa access to the latest technology, including FTTB.”

Vodacom Business’s Broadband Connect Fibre service provides SMEs with bundled uncapped Internet access, a router, and optional fixed-line VoIP which the operator said delivers as much as 30% savings on phone calls.

Rapid deployment, including the connecting and upgrading of fibre cables is part of the service, and all installation costs are covered by Vodacom.

The monthly prices of the various uncapped packages available on Vodacom’s FTTB offering are summarised in the table below.

Future plans

Vodacom said that an important part of its future roll-out plan is that it will be offering customers the option of installing additional equipment in their premises to, in effect, set up a dedicated mini mobile base station.

This equipment, which uses the fibre connection to route cellphone traffic back into the network, will give the best possible mobile signal and eliminate any troublesome coverage spots in the office, Vodacom said.

“We’re particularly excited about our acquisition of Neotel and what this will mean for the speed at which we can rollout broadband services,” Jarana added.

“If given regulatory approval, we’ll be able to add Neotel’s 22,000 km of fibre to our existing network and then fast-track the provision of high-speed connectivity not only for businesses but also for homes across South Africa,” said Jarana.

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