[dropcap]M[/dropcap]TN South Africa said on Monday that it plans to open its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network to other Internet service providers from September.
The move, which brings MTN in line with other fibre providers such as Vumatel and Openserve, means consumers will have a choice of ISPs when buying access to infrastructure built by MTN.
This includes fibre operated by Smart Village, an FTTH network provider that MTN acquired in 2015.
Services will be offered to ISPs through MTN’s wholesale broadband fibre connection division, the company said.
“Open-access networks remain one of the critical pillars of our converged strategy,” said John Lewis, chief officer for managed network services at MTN, in a statement.
The ability to choose an ISP will “stimulate competition among service providers, lower the costs for subscribers and reduce the barriers of entry to new service providers entering the market,” Lewis said.
Smart Village’s fibre footprint will also be made available on the same terms, once the access network upgrade and the integration into MTN’s core network has been completed, the company said.
“ISPs that sign a wholesale service agreement with MTN will be able to lease a fibre broadband connection from the optical network terminal within the home, linking to a network-to-network interface, established with MTN in any Teraco data centre. The ISPs will then provide the fibre connectivity, Internet and other value-added services to their customers via MTN’s wholesale broadband fibre connection,” it said. — © 2017 NewsCentral Media