The number of active fibre-to-the-home connections in Telkom’s network has leapt past the number of legacy copper connections. This as the company continues with an aggressive decommissioning of its copper infrastructure.

Telkom said on Tuesday alongside its interim results for the six months to end-September 2021 that the number of homes passed with fibre increased by 54.2% year on year to reach reach 707 399. The number of homes actually connected to this fibre infrastructure increased by 34.3% to 331 735.

At the same time, the number of homes connected to copper declined to just 230 817. Total fixed broadband subscribers declined to 562 552 at end-September, from 637 884 a year earlier. The total number of fixed access lines plunged 21.9% to just 1.1 million.

There was a big spike in capital expenditure on the fibre network, rising 297% year on year. Overall, capex rose 22.7% to R3.6-billion, with the biggest share going to mobile.

“With the highest fibre-to-the-home connectivity rate in the market of 46.9%, we started accelerating our fibre roll-out following a period of focusing on connectivity rate to improve returns. Going forward, we will focus on expanding our FTTH footprint while simultaneously focusing on connecting premises to ensure that we maintain a high connectivity rate,” Telkom said.

Openserve, the wholesale division in Telkom responsibility for network deployment and maintenance, continued to stabilise, Telkom said, with its top line revenue slightly down by 1.8% to R6.7-billion in the six-month period.