MTN is starting its first fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) deployments in the Western Cape, it said on Friday. It has begun trenching in Fresnaye and Bakoven, where it intends connecting up to a thousand homes by year-end.
It’s the first time that MTN has expanded its FTTH network outside Gauteng, where it has built infrastructure at Monagham Farm near Lanseria Airport and in the Johannesburg suburbs of Lonehill and Parkmore.
MTN is providing the network on what it calls an “open access” basis, allowing third-party Internet service providers to sell services on top of its network.
“MTN expects to connect about 561 homes in Fresnaye and 373 homes in Bakoven with FTTH before the end of the year,” it said.
“The topography of the area, which mostly comprises of hard rock, poses challenges for the civil works, which approximate 17km for Fresnaye and 8,8km for Bakoven. Despite the challenges posed by the rocky terrain, about 4km and 3,8km of trenching has been completed in both Fresnaye and Bakoven respectively,” it said.
MTN’s FTTH network provides speeds of up to 100Mbit/s.
Telecommunications operators such as MTN, Vumatel, Link Africa and Telkom are in a race to wire up South Africa’s suburbs to high-speed fibre. — © 2015 NewsCentral Media
