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Vodacom extends fibre network

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 08 Dec 2016
Vodacom passes 31 000 homes and businesses with its own fibre infrastructure, and strategic wholesale agreements add another 175 000 endpoints.
Vodacom passes 31 000 homes and businesses with its own fibre infrastructure, and strategic wholesale agreements add another 175 000 endpoints.

Vodacom has signed new wholesale agreements with two third-party fibre network infrastructure providers: SADV and Metrofibre Networx.

This after the telco in September announced it had signed lease agreements with Fibrehoods, Openserve, Century City Connect, Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa to deliver Vodacom Fibre products.

"We are making good progress on our own fibre deployment and by entering into strategic wholesale agreements to sell services through other network providers, we have additional access to over 175 000 endpoints," according to Louisa van Beek, managing executive for fibre-to-the-X at Vodacom.

Vodacom says third-party network infrastructure partnerships give it access to pre-deployed fibre-to-the-home networks, inclusive of access build and active equipment, which rapidly increases time to market. Wholesale agreements also allow customers to access the Vodacom Fibre offering across a wider geographical area.

"The rollout of fibre remains a critical part of Vodacom's growth strategy and our intention remains to pass one million broadband fibre endpoints within the next four years," Van Beek adds.

Vodacom now passes over 31 000 homes and businesses with its own fibre infrastructure, an improvement on the September figure of 25 000 homes when it said it had already invested R500 million in urban infrastructure.

The company confirmed in its recent interim results that it is exploring new ways to expand in the fibre space and will invite partners to enter into co-build agreements.

The telco also unveiled new uncapped price plans on the third-party infrastructure networks where it sells fibre broadband services.

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