Vodacom has signed lease agreements with a range of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) providers, promising broadband access starting at R499/month for 100GB of data on a 10Mbit/s line.
The mobile operator, which is keen to build a significant presence in the fixed-line broadband market, has partnered with Century City Connect, Dark Fibre Africa, Fibrehoods, Openserve and Vumatel to deliver Internet access to consumers.
The new Vodacom fibre services are available only on 24-month contracts, although additional contract periods will become available “in due course”.
The pricing for the new services as as follows (table supplied by Vodacom):
“Vodacom customers will now have access to the Vodacom fibre services through these providers, including Vodacom fibre broadband, Vodacom fibre fixed voice and value-added services,” the company said.
“Third-party network infrastructure partnerships give Vodacom access to pre-deployed FTTH networks inclusive of access build and active equipment which rapidly increases time to market [for Vodacom].”
“Earlier this year, Vodacom stated its intention to pass one million broadband fibre end-points within the next four years. In order to accelerate access to fibre services for our customers, we have partnered with third party FTTH infrastructure providers for access to ready-built FTTH networks,” said Vodacom managing executive Louisa van Beek.
Vodacom now passes 25 000 homes with its own fibre infrastructure and the company has to date invested R500m in urban infrastructure.
“The roll-out of fibre remains a critical part of Vodacom’s growth strategy. We anticipate significant growth in this area and besides investing significantly in our own infrastructure, we will also continue to sign up additional third-party network infrastructure providers,” said Van Beek. — (c) 2016 NewsCentral Media