South Africa’s biggest fibre telecommunications operator, Vumatel, now passes two million homes, a million of which are in traditionally underserved areas, including townships.

Parent Maziv, which also owns Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), said it has also now deployed more than 50 000km of optic-fibre infrastructure.

“We have rolled out coverage in areas such as Soweto, Khayelitsha and Umlazi. These are traditionally overlooked communities,” said Vumatel chief operating officer Dewald Booysen in a statement.

Sister company DFA, meanwhile, has announced a R400-million fibre network infrastructure expansion project aimed at connecting more businesses in South Africa to high-speed broadband.

“The project has been in trial phase since February and is now being rolled out at scale,” Maziv said.

“The infrastructure upgrade, which will be carried out in three phases over 18 months, will ensure faster delivery of network services to customers and improved network performance, while providing a scalable solution to meet increasing demand for connectivity services from customers.”

“DFA is investing heavily in enhancing and upgrading existing infrastructure environment to ensure we are able to deliver high volumes of fibre-to-the-business connectivity and provide customers with a consistently high standard of service delivery,” said chief technology officer Andreas Uys.

DUDCs

As part of the upgrade project, DFA will deploy 800 additional “dry underground distribution cabinets”, or DUDC units. These units have been developed and manufactured in South Africa to DFA’s specifications.

“The additional units will dramatically shorten the distance that data travels from the customer and over the network using dedicated cables, ensuring the shortest possible installation times,” Uys said.

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“The deployment of the new DUDC units is designed to accommodate future growth and demand on the network, with the ability to scale up fibre deployment to meet demand as it increases.

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“The additional DUDC units and dedicated cables aggregate traffic closer to the customer, which at the end of the day means faster deployment and installation, and our customers can expect a significant improvement in their connectivity experience,” said Uys. – © 2023 NewsCentral Media