Vodacom has signed lease agreements with third party network infrastructure providers Fibrehoods, Openserve, Century City Connect, Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa to deliver Vodacom Fibre products.
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.
Third party network infrastructure partnerships give Vodacom access to pre-deployed FTTH (Fibre-To-The-Home) networks inclusive of access build and active equipment which rapidly increases time to market. Leased networks allow customers across a broader geographical area to enjoy the Vodacom fibre service offering.
Louisa van Beek, managing executive for FTTX (Fibre-To-The-X) at Vodacom, says: “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.”
Vodacom now passes over 25 000 homes with its own fibre infrastructure and the company has to date invested R500-million in urban infrastructure.
Van Beek says: “The rollout 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.”
Vodacom Fibre is currently available on Dark Fibre Africa, Openserve, Vumatel, Fibrehoods and soon will be added to the Century City Connect open access network