Telkom has announced plans to roll out Fibre to the Home (FTTH) connectivity to more than 20 South African suburbs before the end of 2014. It will also deliver high speed home LTE connectivity to other suburbs across the country.
Speaking at the company’s annual results announcement, Telkom’s Group CEO Sipho Maseko, said: “We hear customer’s demands for high quality and high speed Internet connectivity. Telkom is on a determined path to deliver on these demands.
“Our commitment to deliver this rollout by the end of the calendar year indicates our efforts to put our customers’ needs at the heart of our strategy. The quality of connectivity that fibre and LTE provide means that South Africans can take advantage of the endless possibilities that access to the Internet can provide,” he says.
“This rollout is a precursor of many exciting prospects that Telkom is working towards. With speeds of 100 Mbps on the fibre network and peak speeds of 100 Mbps on the home LTE network, the concept of the Connected Home becomes a lot more tangible and the possibility for value added services is within reach.”
Maseko adds that Telkom currently has 475 144 active VDSL ports and that 400 000 South African homes can already be supplied with VDSL connectivity with up to 20Mbps and 40Mbps services.
The fibre rollout will enable connectivity speeds of up to 100Mbps to suburbs in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. They include Groenkloof, Brooklyn, Houghton Estate, Morningside, Bryanston, Sandhurst, Westcliff, Rosebank, Kloof, Reservoir Hills, Plattekloof, Camps Bay, Foreshore and Bishopscourt.
The home LTE rollout will enable peak connectivity speeds of up to 100Mbps to suburbs including Ivory Park, Tembisa, Kagiso, KwaThema, Diepkloof, Alexandra, Soweto, KwaMashu, Inanda ,Umlazi and Mitchell’s Plain.