DFA positions itself for future growth

Issued by IT Public Relations for Dark Fibre Africa

Johannesburg, 31 May 2013

In the pursuit of future growth and sustainability, Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) has begun to bolster its top management capabilities with the appointment of two senior executives. Reshaad Sha has been appointed as DFA's Chief Strategy Officer, while Brian Alwar joined as Chief Sales and Marketing Officer.

Over the past five-and-a-half years, DFA has experienced significant growth and its open access business model continues to provide for an environment that encourages competition in the South African telecoms and Internet service provision market.

DFA's active fibre-optic infrastructure now spans over 7 300km nationally with a planned increase of approximately 1 300km over the next 12 months, making it the largest provider of open access fibre in southern Africa.

This growth has fuelled both direct and indirect employment across South Africa. "In a recent measurement, DFA has estimated that, through its open access fibre deployment, at least 4 500 jobs have been created directly as well as indirectly. Additionally, an innumerable amount of businesses and consumers are experiencing the benefit of the DFA fibre network deployment."

DFA CEO Gustav Smit says these appointments are key to the future growth of DFA. "Sha's responsibility is to lead DFA's future growth strategic planning, as well as an increased focus in areas of the businesses that require both medium- and long-term direction. He recently served as MD of a wholesale long-distance voice termination company, and prior to that, was director of strategy for Cisco Systems in the emerging markets, where he covered Middle East, Russia, Turkey and Africa."

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In Sha's role as Director of Strategy, he provided advisory services to telecoms operators and national governments across the emerging markets in new revenue and connectivity strategies. He brings along a wealth of experience in the telecoms sector with international and local perspectives.

Until recently, Brian Alwar served as Executive: Sales and Marketing for Grintek Saab. He started out as a technician, designing and fault-finding down to component level. After this, he moved into management to head up a surface mount technology unit, thereafter cultivating his passion within the sales and marketing arena.

"As Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Alwar's responsibilities include seeking new market opportunities and co-ordinating the business development and sales teams. His professional career within the telecommunications sector spans over 20 years in different facets of the industry," concludes Smit.

Dark Fibre Africa (DFA)

Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), a local open access dark fibre infrastructure provider, specialises in the financing, building and installation of carrier-neutral, open access ducting infrastructure. The company started rolling out its network in metropolitan areas in October 2007 and has already laid in excess of 7 300 kilometres of infrastructure that is open to all licensed players, on equal terms.

This infrastructure is commissioned by licensed telecoms and Internet operators, which provide high-speed voice, data and video services to customers. The underlying business principle is that of an independent 'open access' infrastructure. With DFA acting purely as landlord, the infrastructure is entirely operator-neutral and does not differentiate between users.

The basis of the model is that DFA is building and managing a first-class physical infrastructure for any licensed operator to take advantage of. Licensed operators now have a ready-made infrastructure on which to build their differentiating converged services, bringing these services to market quicker, thereby enjoying earlier revenue generation.

There is a state-of-the-art network monitoring centre in Rivonia (Johannesburg) that provides operators with outsourced fibre network management services and offers continuous communication with clients should the unthinkable incident occur. Any service provider, licensed to do so by ICASA, may rent fibres from DFA for their own transmission and backbone infrastructure purposes.

DFA assumes the role of physical infrastructure developer, funds the roll out, and on completion, provides all operators with a first-class secure ducting infrastructure on which licensed operators can build their services. The deployment of metro and long-haul open access ducting, optimised for fibre network deployment, will enable larger users of communications capacity to enjoy logical separation and ownership of communications capacity, while sharing the same physical right of way and access routes with other carriers.

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