Fibertime, the pay-as-you-go township fibre network founded by serial telecoms entrepreneur Alan Knott-Craig, has reaveled that it has recorded download speeds of 1Gbit/s on its network in Alexandra, Johannesburg – a notable marker for a service better known for its price than its raw performance.
In a post on LinkedIn, Knott-Craig shared a Fast.com speed test showing a 1Gbit/s download, 560Mbit/s upload and latency of 14ms, on a connection he said was running in Alexandra for the company’s signature R5/day broadband plan. Fibertime’s advertised product has long been pitched at 100Mbit/s uncapped, so the result points to headroom in the network well beyond what customers are promised.
Speaking to TechCentral on Thursday, Knott-Craig said Alexandra was the first township earmarked for an upgrade and that the company intended to upgrade every network in the country over the coming 12 months.
“We currently promise 100Mbit/s, but it tops out at 250Mbit/s in Kayamandi,” he said, referring to the Stellenbosch township where fibertime launched its proof-of-concept network in late 2022. The gigabit figure in Alexandra is well above even that.
Knott-Craig told TechCentral the company has 470 000 connected homes across 53 townships in 13 cities and seven provinces. On that basis – and measured by connected homes rather than the more common “homes passed” yardstick – he said fibertime is now the third-largest fibre network operator in South Africa, and “by far the biggest township FNO”.
R5 vouchers
Fibertime has said it grew from about 10 000 homes in March 2024 to several hundred thousand over the following year, deploying Nokia fibre access nodes and Wi-Fi-enabled routers, and selling access through R5 vouchers at township spaza shops rather than monthly contracts. Each connected home is given a free router, with a battery to keep the connection alive during load shedding.
The model has drawn backing from Nokia, development financier Finnfund and Rand Merchant Bank, and the company has spoken of a possible JSE listing once it reaches the scale to justify it.
TCS | Alan Knott-Craig unveils Fibertime’s big bet on township fibre
Fibertime’s pitch rests on a simple proposition: that demand for fast, uncapped connectivity is as strong in Alexandra or Kayamandi as in any affluent suburb, and that fibre – not fixed-wireless – is what those communities deserve. Knott-Craig has argued previously that offering townships anything less than proper fibre amounts to accepting second-class internet for poorer South Africans.
Maziv-owned Vumatel has pushed into the same communities with its low-cost Vuma Key product, and Herotel – the operator Knott-Craig co-founded before exiting in 2022 – has built much of its recent growth on smaller towns and townships.
As TechCentral has previously argued, the competitive scramble for the township market is doing more to close South Africa’s digital divide than decades of state policy managed, even as operators fight parallel battles over issues such as municipal wayleaves that slow aerial fibre deployment. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media
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