Cape Town, 08 Oct 2008
Neotel already offers fibre as a last mile solution, although it is mainly for businesses. However, there is no reason why some homeowners cannot get it, if they can afford it, says the fixed-line operator.
Stefano Mattiello, Neotel's enterprise group executive head, says since the operator has laid 15 000km of fibre in nine big density metropolitan areas, the next step is to start laying fibre to buildings within those areas.
“Strictly speaking, anyone who lives within those areas can have fibre as the last mile connection. However, it will be a bit pricey,” Mattiello says. “Therefore, there is no reason for some people to wait for two years; it can be available now.”
He does, however, acknowledge it will be expensive for homeowners to receive it.
Fixing for FTTX
Fibre to any location, also known as FTTX, is considered by the telecommunications industry to be the best last mile solution to offer the so-called quad-play service of voice, Internet, video and IP TV directly to customers.
It is also considered to be a better alternative to wireless solutions that are limited in their ability to supply these services and to that of copper cabling that has a limited upgrade path and is prone to being stolen.
Raven Naidoo, chairman of ICT consultancy Radian, says fibre can bring the necessary data speeds for consumers to access services such as video-on-demand.
“Typically, a household will need about 40Mbps to access these services and fibre can easily supply that. The problem is the return on the cost of laying the infrastructure takes some time to recover,” he says.
Naidoo says some international telecommunications companies, the most prominent being the US Verizon group, are taking a bet on the future by laying fibre to the home, although the services are not necessarily available yet.
“It will be a long time before copper cable is totally replaced by fibre, especially in SA. Telkom is considering offering wireless solutions in the rural areas where even the cost of laying copper cable has equalled, if not surpassed, that of fibre,” he says.
Copping out of copper
Naidoo says Telkom's continued use of copper cable in urban areas is a matter of network architecture and historical factors.
“Changing a last mile connection will take a lot of time and a lot of money,” he says.
Mattiello says Neotel took a strategic decision to immediately implement the metro access layer using fibre, which resembles a spiral.
“It runs with the existing streets and is laid in the kerb to provide access across an entire area rather than just connecting major hubs,” says Mattiello. “Essentially, what this means is that the infrastructure is already available and, therefore, we can connect customers in much faster turnaround times. It also means our services are not limited to big organisations - smaller companies are moving to our network because it is already available in their metros.”
He says while many might feel there is risk in taking this approach as all clients might not sign up with Neotel, the company feels it would rather have the infrastructure in place to be ready for the move.
“In addition to that, our approach eliminates any perceived exclusivity attached to having high-quality telecommunications services and customer service - we've made sure any company, large or small, within the metro can connect to our network. Fibre to the kerb is available from Neotel immediately and it is simply a matter of time before we can offer the same type of service to the home.”
Relates story:
Fibre-to-home almost a reality
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