True broadband speeds of 100Mb/s to the home are fast becoming a reality, meaning that consumers will be able to receive Internet, TV and other services directly over fibre, says Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) CEO Gustav Smit.
Officially launching the DFA's national network yesterday, Smit told ITWeb that connectivity prices should either start falling soon or consumers should start getting considerably more bandwidth for their subscriptions
“The biggest constraint to this are the service providers themselves and they are still selling connectivity in terms of small 4Mb/s packages, rather than looking to sell full high-speed bandwidth services,” he said.
DFA has been building its network since 2007 and has installed 800km of fibre in various parts of the country. Most of the fibre has been implemented in metropolitan centres in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg.
However, the company is beginning to lay national long-distance links as well. A link between the undersea cable landing site, at Mtunzini in KwaZulu-Natal, and the port city of Durban has been completed, while a link between Mtunzini and Richards Bay is under construction.
This will eventually stretch all the way to Johannesburg after trailing the border areas between SA and Swaziland and then following up the Gauteng-Maputo corridor. The links will be completed by August this year.
DFA hopes to complete another national long-distance link between Cape Town and Johannesburg by the middle of next year.
Smit says that DFA has raised R1.5 billion in capital from its funders, which include Venfin and Absa Capital. The company is about to embark on a second round of fundraising to obtain another R2.4 billion.
Smit is adamant DFA is not in competition with government-owned Broadband Infraco, which the state has set up to build national broadband infrastructure and is funded to the tune of R950 million.
“We are not duplicating the routes that Infraco is on as this will give service providers an alternative route and redundancy when needed. Also, Infraco does not have metropolitan networks and we are willing to share infrastructure with them so as not to duplicate investments,” he said.
Malcolm Kirby, DFA manager for sales and marketing, has identified some 2 000 potential customers that lie along DFA's existing routes to whom service providers could sell high-speed broadband services.
“DFA charges the service providers per metre, so the more bandwidth they use, the cheaper it is to supply.”
Reshaad Sha, a senior manager at Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group, says that wireless connectivity is unable to deliver access speed of 100Mb/s where fibre is the only technology that can.
The roll-out of broadband directly influences a country's GDP, adds Sha. “The country is close to a tipping point on broadband roll-out. The two biggest constraints are speed and the political will. The importance of broadband can be seen in the US's plans to revamp its economy and they have earmarked $6 billion (R58 billion) to building networks there.”
Smit says DFA has signed up eight clients so far. These include cellular network operators MTN and Vodacom, while Telkom has also decided to use parts of its network. The others are service providers who want to play their cards close to their chests for the time being.
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