Vodacom says it will concentrate on fibre-to-the-business (FTTx) before embarking on a fully fledged home solution.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>) programme.”<\/p>\n “We are mainly going to focus on fibre-to-the-business, and then expand to fibre-to-the-home.”<\/p>\n “We are going to start it this year,\u201d Joosub said of the group’s FTTH plans.<\/p>\n \u201cSo 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\u2026it\u2019s definitely part of the three year programme,” he said.<\/p>\n “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.\u201d<\/p>\n In April, the group said it is actively rolling out fibre in business parks. \u201cWe\u2019re currently building the fibre backbones to make this possible,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cNeotel 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,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Rival operator, MTN, recently announced plans to commercially launch 100Mbps FTTH services in South Africa on 1 June 2014.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cMTN is currently rolling out aggressive deployment to high-density urban areas, such as high-end gated communities, boomed-off suburbs and high-rise buildings,\u201d it said in its statement.<\/p>\n Telkom, meanwhile, says that it is on track to roll out FTTH before the end of the year.<\/p>\n Vodacom readying fibre-to-the-home<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n MTN fibre-to-the-home product launch date<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Neotel outlines fibre-to-the-home strategy<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Rich Joburg suburb punts fibre-to-the-home<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nMore on FTTH<\/h3>\n