South Africans are in for a treat: fibre. Yesssssssss. But because of high costs of installation, it will predominantly be rolled out in the wealthier suburbs. Targeting upmarket suburbs with ‘fibre-to-the-home’ (FTTH) technology, companies such as Telkom and Vumatel have so far provided suburbs such as Bryanston, Dunkeld, Houghton, Waterkloof, Parkhurst, Hyde Park and Gallo Manor in Gauteng as well as Umhlanga in KZN. Lucky them.

There are many new fibre players focusing on FTTH opportunities, although the reach and availability is substantially limited – some focus on gated and cluster communities specifically.

But why only these wealthier areas? It depends on the infrastructure of the neighbourhood.

Given that each area is slightly different, factors such as density of houses, and the distance of fibre run you would need to cover a suburb are also factors which influence the cost. Lastly, a point of presence to allow for better breakout of the services on top.

Each of those factors add up to give you a cost per home, and typically you would look at anywhere from about R6 000 up to in some extreme cases about R12 000 per home.

But there is hope. An open access model with fibre broadband allowing customers to choose their own service provider and ability from infrastructure providers to connect to other networks’ exchanges, is one way to grow out these networks.

In terms of  the roll-out of connecting areas not previously connected, this has a knock on effect – the better you sell your network as you are starting, the better your coverage is to roll out to outer areas.

One company that doesn’t seem to discriminate is RSAWEB, rolling out high-speed fibre connections rolling out across the country. Check them out for the best prices – high speed is king.

[source: news24]