By 2020, the metros will be saturated with fibre, and service providers will be to look further afield for opportunities.
This is according to Jarryd Chatz, CEO of Bitco, who believes fibre will soon be the main Internet source in cities such as Cape Town and Johannesburg.
“So much so that fibre is being installed at such a rapid rate that key South African cities will be saturated by 2020,” he says. “There will be little room to install fibre in these cities, as a result service providers will be compelled to look to untapped territories.
Chatz believes that, by 2020, ISPs will battle to provide fibre in rural areas and small towns, largely because of poor infrastructure and the distances that need to be covered to reach users.
Although wireless technologies will still play a role in Internet access, fibre will be in the lead.
“ISPs will need to look into value added services within the ICT space in order to grow,” Chatz says. “This will increase their customer base as services will be more streamlined.
“For ISPs such as BitCo, we will see partnerships and mergers with companies that offer cloud base services.”
