Residents of the upmarket Johannesburg suburb of Parkview, following in the footsteps of nearby Parkhurst, are pushing ahead with their plans to build a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network in their suburb.

The Parkview Residents Association on Thursday said it had issued a request for proposals (RFP) to companies interested in providing FTTH to the suburb. The RFP is available to any interested party by e-mailing [email protected] and requesting it.

A survey completed by the residents’ association in August showed “very strong demand for new, fast broadband services, especially where it was vetted and endorsed by the association”.

According to the survey, which drew responses from more than 60% of households, four out of five households currently with a home Internet connection would consider switching to a new, faster broadband service vetted and endorsed by the association. Fewer than 5% would not consider switching from their current provider. Nine in 10 respondents without a home Internet connection stated they would still consider a fibre connection.

Some 92% of respondents said they have a current Internet connection at home, with Telkom’s ADSL being by far the most common service. Most of these households (61%) have ADSL connections at speeds between 1Mbit/s and 5Mbit/s. Another one in four (24%) have ADSL of 10Mbit/s or above. According to the survey, 45% of households use between 10GB and 50 GB of data per month. One in eight (12%) use more than 50 GB.

Almost a third (31%) pay between R300 and R499/month. Over a third (37%) pay between R500 and R799. Over a fifth (22%) pay more than R800 per month. Almost six out of 10 (59%) of Internet households also pay over R100 per month on landline calls. Most non-Internet households don’t have a landline at all. Of these, none said they didn’t need the Internet.

More than three quarters of respondents indicated willingness to pay between R700 and R900/month for speeds of 50Mbit/s to 100Mbit/s (inclusive of data costs). One in eight would pay R900/month for a 100Mbit/s connection with 100GB data (line and data inclusive). 50Mbit/s was the most popular choice of speed based on an estimated cost of R700/month plus installation costs or R900 with no installation cost (line and data inclusive).

“We are encouraged by recent developments in Parkhurst with Vumatel beginning to trench for a new service there and also by announcements by Telkom, Vodacom and MTN signalling their intentions to make FTTH available in Johannesburg,” said Parkview Residents Association chairman Steve Lenehan.

“We think that communities have a key role to play in engaging residents to strengthen the investment case and also in ensuring value for money and quality of service from providers.”