2014 has been a watershed year for fibre in SA - thanks not only to resourceful residents, but also to smaller ICT players that have driven the technology that is likely to one day be the standard in connectivity, replacing its predecessor copper.
Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), a local open access dark fibre infrastructure provider, says credit needs to be given to SA's emerging Internet service providers (ISPs), which have played a pivotal part in driving the demand for fibre services among small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
DFA's chief strategy officer Reshaad Sha says the SME market - driven by the growing pool of smaller ISPs vying for business in SA - has emerged as one of fibre's best advocates this year. "The smaller ISPs are now the ones creating and driving demand [for fibre] more and more, by offering services like discounted voice, hosted PBX and cloud. The more businesses in need of fibre services, the better the competition driving the demand."
Sha says there has been a definite jump in the number of smaller ISPs coming on board this year. "About 18 months ago, there were about 35 active enterprise ISPs trying to deliver services - today there are closer to 60."
Tshego Ditshego, brand and communications executive at DFA, says the view that it is primarily the big corporates that need access to fibre is changing "as both large and small business connectivity requirements become more content intensive". He says the alternatives (including wireless and ADSL) do not compare in terms of capacity, speed and reliability.
According to the California-based Fibre Optic Association, fibre links offer more than 1 000 times as much bandwidth over distances over 100 times further than copper.
Access shift
Independent telecoms researcher Samantha Perry confirms the notion that a shift is under way in the access market. "Good old copper, which has provided last mile circuits for years and years, is being replaced by fibre."
This is good news for business and consumers alike, says Perry, because not only is fibre less prone to theft than copper cable, it also offers unlimited bandwidths - although, she points out, the maximum available currently is 100Mbps.
Perry explains: "Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) refers to the provision of an end-to-end fibre connection from provider to home user. FTTB is fibre-to-the business, provided on the same basis. Both offer South Africans that elusive ideal - high-speed broadband. FTTH and FTTB aren't cheap or even affordable for many people, but as rollouts increase, prices should go down.
"While the extent of local fibre networks hasn't been determined, Telkom's copper network is in decline, and shrinking, with the number of fixed-line subscribers down to 3.6 million, from 3.8 million last year, off an all-time high of 5.4 million in 2000. FTTH is a very new industry in SA but if global trends are anything to go by, growth should be fast."
Fibre forward
Ditshego says open access data centres, video conferencing and video over IP are some of the main services that have been seen to drive demand for fibre services this year.
Sha says 2014 represents the year fibre services started being introduced locally, while 2015 will be the year we are likely to start seeing traction in terms of subscriber uptake. By late 2015, he says, SA will start seeing the measureable adoption of fibre services.
Outgoing Independent Communications Authority of SA councillor William Stucke recently lauded residents and operators for the "enormous progress" the country had seen over the past year. He said SA was slowly getting there with metro fibre, yet - despite the challenges - he assured demand would inevitably come.
Perry points out Point Topic's global broadband subscriber research - released in July - shows there were 690 million fixed broadband lines globally at end-March 2014. "The same report revealed that end-to-end copper only accounted for half of those connections. FTTH accounted for some 50 million connections while the other fibre variants (collectively known as FTTX) and cable comprised the rest."
DFA is targeting 10 000 connections in the coming year. Ditshego points out there are about 700 000 registered enterprises in SA. "Industry has a big task ahead to connect these businesses."
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