The race to wire up South Africa’s suburbs to fibre broadband has led MTN to buy Smart Village from MultiChoice.

“MTN has concluded a deal with MultiChoice to acquire Smart Village, which will accelerate the mobile operator’s fibre to the home (FTTH) strategy to be the provider of choice for high speed fibre network across South Africa,” MTN said in a statement.

The deal is subject to approval by the competition authorities.

Smart Villages passed 29 000 residential homes and standards in Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

“The acquisition will give MTN a presence in more gated estates and apartment blocks, business parks and shopping malls,” MTN said.

The company’s FTTH footprint includes the “flagship and sought-after” estates of Waterfall, Jackal Creek, Xanadu Eco-Estate and Midstream Estates.

“In the enterprise space, the deal will give MTN Business the ability to provide wholesale access to 4 228 enterprises passed by Smart Village, while ensuring substantial savings for MTN and its customers as traffic will be routed via MTN’s backhaul infrastructure,” said MTN South Africa CEO Mteto Nyati in the statement.

In terms of the deal, MultiChoice will continue to look after existing Smart Village customers until the deal is ratified.