Telkom has announced plans for a national fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) project targeting upmarket suburbs in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town.
CEO Sipho Maseko on Friday revealed plans to roll out fibre broadband at speeds of up to 100Mbit/s. The main focus will be on Johannesburg’s northern suburbs.
Suburbs in Gauteng that have been identified are Groenkloof, Brooklyn in Pretoria and Houghton Estate, Bryanston, Sandhurst, Westcliff, Rosebank, Craighall, Craighall Park, Illovo, Parktown North, Hyde Park and Parkhurst in Johannesburg.
In Durban, areas identified are Kloof (Winston Park and Everton are included) and Reservoir Hills.
Cape Town suburbs are the Foreshore, Bishopscourt, Camps Bay (including Clifton and Bakoven) and Plattekloof.
“There are very clear plans in place,” said Maseko at Telkom’s 2014 annual results presentation in Pretoria. He said the suburbs identified will have FTTH delivered by the end of March 2015.
Maseko said third-party Internet service providers (ISPs) will get access to Telkom’s FTTH network and will be able to provide data services to customers in the same way they do over its copper-based ADSL network. “This is not a Telkom Retail-dedicated service,” Maseko said. “The ISPs are welcome to participate as well…”
He added that prices for the FTTH service should be made available next week.
Telkom’s announcement comes just two weeks after Parkhurst residents announced they had contracted Stellenbosch-based telecommunications start-up Vumatel to deliver FTTH to the 2 100 homes in the area. — © 2014 NewsCentral Media
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