Telkom targets one million fibre connections

Johannesburg - South Africa’s biggest fixed-line company Telkom plans to bolt fibre broadband connections to one million homes by 2018.

This is according to reports quoting Telkom’s chief executive officer Sipho Maseko, who spoke at the company’s annual Satnac conference in Hermanus on Monday.

“We will be connecting a million homes to FTTH (fibre-to-the-home) connections by the end of 2018,” he said.

Fibre broadband technology provides for faster internet download speeds than ADSL.

In its results briefing earlier this year, Telkom said that it already has one million ADSL connections in South Africa.

Now, the company is focusing increasingly on its fibre broadband footprint as more independent competitors move in on this space.

Last week, fibre broadband provider Vumatel said it plans to connect 100 000 homes by 2016. Vumatel only started operations in 2014 by connecting Johannesburg suburb Parkhurst but it has since rolled out to more suburbs in South Africa’s biggest city.

Moreover, mobile network MTN said on Friday that it plans to connect approximately 1 000 Western Cape homes with fibre broadband by year-end.

Meanwhile, Telkom at Satnac said that it had connected 38 000 homes to fibre in August 2015 and that by December 2015 it would have hit 70 000 homes, according to local technology publication TechCentral.

Maseko further said this figure is expected to grow to 150 000 by March next year and 500 000 by the end of 2016, said TechCentral.

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