TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentral TechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Data suggests South African start-up exit size shrinking

      7 July 2022

      France’s Canal+ takes MultiChoice stake to 20%

      7 July 2022

      Huge Group to acquire what was Virgin Mobile in South Africa

      6 July 2022

      TechCentral needs your feedback – 2022 reader survey now live

      6 July 2022

      Call for ‘energy emergency’ to end load shedding

      6 July 2022
    • World

      Clear signs of trouble ahead for the global tech industry

      7 July 2022

      Elon Musk had twins last year with Shivon Zilis, one of his top execs

      7 July 2022

      China accuses US of ‘technological terrorism’

      6 July 2022

      Apple devices to get ‘Lockdown Mode’ to fight spyware

      6 July 2022

      Scientists at Cern observe three ‘exotic’ new particles

      6 July 2022
    • In-depth

      The bonfire of the NFTs

      5 July 2022

      The NFT party is over

      30 June 2022

      The great crypto crash: the fallout, and what happens next

      22 June 2022

      Goodbye, Internet Explorer – you really won’t be missed

      19 June 2022

      Oracle’s database dominance threatened by rise of cloud-first rivals

      13 June 2022
    • Podcasts

      Demystifying the complexity of AI – fact vs fiction

      6 July 2022

      How your organisation can triage its information security risk

      22 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E06 – ‘Apple Silicon’

      15 June 2022

      The youth might just save us

      15 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E05 – ‘Nvidia: The Green Goblin’

      8 June 2022
    • Opinion

      South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

      4 July 2022

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022

      A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

      19 May 2022

      From spectrum to roads, why fixing SA’s problems is an uphill battle

      19 April 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»News»Jozi, now with fibre to the home

    Jozi, now with fibre to the home

    News By Duncan McLeod6 September 2012
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Mark Seftel

    A portion of downtown Johannesburg is being transformed into one of the most wired places in Africa thanks to the initiative of a group of tech-savvy property developers.

    The Maboneng Precinct is a short walk from banking group Absa’s head office and houses Arts on Main, the Mainchange office building, Main Street Life and the 12 Decades Hotel, all around Main Street in City & Suburban. It’s a mixed-use development consisting of art galleries, restaurants, loft-style apartments and office space and is fast becoming one of the best-connected places in Africa.

    It’s also become a popular destination for Jo’burgers attracted to the weekend markets at Arts on Main. What few visitors to Maboneng realise, though, is that the developers are laying fibre across the area with the aim of offering ultra-fast broadband to people working and living in the precinct.

    Together with Jonathan Liebmann of Propertuity Property Management, the property developer of the Maboneng Precinct, Mark Seftel, an entrepreneur and former telecoms industry executive, set up the plan to deploy fibre directly into homes and businesses in the fast-changing part of the central business district.

    Mark Seftel on the roof of Revolution House

    The Mainchange, sandwiched between Main Street Life and Arts on Main, has been transformed into an office building, with the fourth floor, called Open, turned into open-plan Google-esque work space offering a relaxed working environment and, of course, high-speed Internet access.

    Seftel explains that the fibre network — which includes its own small network operations centre in the basement of the Mainchange — currently provides Internet access to businesses and homes at speeds of between 10Mbit/s and 15Mbit/s. Seftel is in talks with tier-one service providers about increasing those speeds to 100Mbit/s.

    One of the first buildings to get fibre access is Revolution House, a block of loft-style apartments across the road from the Mainchange that began life in the 1920s as a juice factory. Each of the apartments — two floors of 60sq m double units, five penthouses and five rooftop units — is connected directly to the Maboneng fibre network.

    Seftel says that it has cost about R10 000 per fibre endpoint, but he expects this cost to come down to as little as R6 000 over time, especially as switches and modems get cheaper. “It works because it’s densified,” he says. “This would be much harder to do in a suburban setting.”

    Onward access is provided by Neotel, with a spur of fibre running into the area from Commissioner Street. Seftel is investigating the option of running a fibre line to an Internet Solutions-owned network operations centre at Sanlam’s offices about 1,7km from Maboneng. Another option is establishing a high-speed wireless connection to Absa, which is about 500m from the site.

    Fibre to the home: a fibre access point in an apartment in Revolution House

    “The current phase [of expansion] will include taking a fibre connection to Arts on Main,” Seftel explains. “There’s another phase that brings fibre to each floor in Main Street Life and the commitment is that every new development that goes up will have a fibre connection.”

    Seftel says the fibre project, which is backed entirely by private capital, shows what’s possible in fibre telecoms. He says the area is attracting professionals, intellectuals, engineers, lawyers and software developers. “It’s not a student market this. It’s for people who are looking for something different. People come here because it has a soul. A lot of tech companies will be attracted into the area.”

    Although there was a flight of business to Sandton 10-15 years ago, Seftel says there are still 20 or 30 “major corporates” in a 5km radius of the Maboneng Precinct. “They need venues they can use and they want to support inner-city rejuvenation,” he says. “Having fast Internet is a big attraction.”  — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media

    Absa Arts on Main Internet Solutions Maboneng Maboneng Precinct Main Street Life Mainchange Mark Seftel Neotel Paul Keursten
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleNew money, new problems
    Next Article Cellphone towers attacked in Nigeria

    Related Posts

    Data suggests South African start-up exit size shrinking

    7 July 2022

    France’s Canal+ takes MultiChoice stake to 20%

    7 July 2022

    Huge Group to acquire what was Virgin Mobile in South Africa

    6 July 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    Following its acquisition by Schwarz Group, XM Cyber buys Cyber Observer

    7 July 2022

    Hot Ink certifies and diversifies to maintain competitive printing edge

    5 July 2022

    Increased flexibility with Dell Precision Mobile Workstations

    5 July 2022
    Opinion

    South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

    4 July 2022

    Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

    21 June 2022

    Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

    13 June 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.