Resilience now top priority for SA networks, says VO Connect

Justin Mackenzie, Managing Director, VO Connect. (Image: Supplied)

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South Africa’s connectivity market is entering a new phase where resilience and continuity are overtaking expansion as defining priorities for network operators, infrastructure providers and service partners. Rising losses from theft and vandalism, higher spend on backup power and increased weather-related damage, including lightning-induced surges, are reshaping investment decisions and customer expectations.

Justin Mackenzie, Managing Director of VO Connect, said resilience is no longer a secondary design goal. “For many providers, the first question is no longer where to expand next. It is how to keep existing networks stable when assets are exposed to theft, power constraints and increasingly disruptive weather. When you add lightning-related damage and the hidden failures it can create, you start to see why continuity and reaction times have become the real differentiator,” he said.

Recent figures published in ICASA’s State of the ICT Sector Report of South Africa 2026 underline the scale of the challenge. ICASA reported that telecoms infrastructure theft and vandalism cost the sector more than R340 million in 2025. The same reporting noted increased operator spend on resilience, including batteries and generators, as networks work to stay online amid power disruptions.

These cost pressures have a direct impact on network roll-out plans. Funds that would typically be allocated to new sites, extended fibre routes or capacity upgrades are increasingly absorbed by security, repairs and hardening measures.

Weather is also an under-discussed risk for network availability. In many parts of South Africa, summer thunderstorms are frequent, and lightning can trigger power surges that damage radios, power supplies, batteries and customer premises equipment. Providers may restore service quickly after a strike, but latent damage can shorten component life and increase repeat failures over time.

The operational impact can include longer mean time to repair, more field visits and higher spares requirements. These factors can also affect maintenance budgets and insurance discussions, especially where repeated failures occur after major storms.

Together, security incidents, power-related constraints and weather events are changing how networks are funded and operated. The focus is shifting from expansion-first programmes to investment that protects uptime and speeds up recovery.

This shift is visible in day-to-day service performance. Outages can take longer to restore when infrastructure is repeatedly compromised, and rerouted traffic can affect latency and throughput. Backup systems also engage more often than they were originally designed to, which increases wear and replacement cycles.

For end-users, the expectation remains straightforward. Connectivity should be available and consistent. When reliability is affected by external pressures on physical infrastructure, service providers and their partners are judged on communication, restoration time and the ability to keep critical applications running.

The effects are often gradual rather than dramatic. A site goes offline and takes longer than expected to restore. A fibre route is compromised and traffic is rerouted, sometimes with a noticeable hit to performance. Backup systems engage more often than they were designed to. Each incident is manageable. Together, they start to shape perception.

Enterprise customers are responding by tightening continuity requirements. Procurement teams are placing more emphasis on recovery time objectives, redundancy options and support responsiveness, particularly for sites that depend on connectivity for point-of-sale, customer service and cloud access.

For resellers and service providers, the pressure is immediate. They sit between infrastructure performance and customer experience, and they typically handle the first escalation when service degrades. This is driving a shift from simple provisioning to more active service management.

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That change is influencing partner selection. Price and speed of deployment still matter, but many buyers are adding resilience measures, alternate routing and support performance to the decision.

As a result, connectivity is increasingly being positioned as a managed service that includes resilience planning and incident response.

Wireless connectivity also has a growing role in continuity strategies. It remains useful for rapid deployment and hard-to-reach areas, and it can also provide an additional path when fixed infrastructure is disrupted.

Wireless can be deployed quickly after an incident, provide interim capacity while fibre is repaired and support redundancy where a single physical route creates risk. This approach can reduce downtime for distributed businesses and remote sites.

Fibre remains the backbone for high-capacity connectivity, but layered design is becoming more common. This includes using more than one access technology and more than one route where possible.

Mackenzie said customers are increasingly asking for practical options rather than best-case diagrams. “A resilient design is usually a layered design. It means having more than one route, more than one access option and a clear restoration plan. In the real world, that is what keeps sites operational when something breaks,” he said.

Buyers are still comparing bandwidth, latency and cost, but resilience is playing a bigger role in how solutions are evaluated. This includes continuity of service, speed of recovery and support performance during incidents.

These factors may not always be obvious during deployment, but they become clear when networks are under pressure. For organisations that rely on cloud applications, voice and real-time customer systems, the difference is material.

Organisations can also review connectivity risk profiles and continuity plans, particularly where single points of failure exist. This typically includes physical security, backup power and surge protection, as well as clear operational processes for incident response.

“Resilience is now part of the core service,” Mackenzie said. “Providers that can restore quickly and communicate clearly will stand out in a market where disruption is a reality.”