Annoying DFA fibre conundrum

Mcwidowmaker

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Joined
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About 3 months ago, DFA dug up my area in Brakpan and installed fibre right up to the corner of my property. I got all excited and hot and bothered, specially since the fastest fixed line connection in the area is 2mb adsl. Telkom hasn't bothered to upgrade the exchange and the exchange is getting quite slow, specially since it does not have a fibre connection.

Now, I though, someone will be able to get us some proper fibre connections at a good price. I had a look at quite a few FTTB solutions from Vodacom, RSAweb, IS and a few others and it looked like I should at least be able to get myself a nice 40mb/s net connection.

Then I started phoning around. Nothing... Vodacom supplies fibre to their tower, but will not be installing equipment to roll fibre out in the area. MTN same. RSAweb, nothing. IS, nothing. No one wanted to get involved to supply fibre, not even after offering a R30k equipment installation fee. :cry:

My heart is ash :erm:
 
Find out where the closest DFA backbone access node is. Its the distance to the closest access node that will determine how viable/difficult it is from someone to supply fibre for you.

It should look like this:
20150716_175840.jpg


Whenever you speak to any ISP's, quote that distance.
 
Your problem is just having the fibre nearby but no operator with access nodes in the area. You cannot simply splice into a fibre for a residential type customer service.
 
I'm 800m from dfa fibre, with a R12k/m budget. But alas, no one willing to bring me some fibre love.
 
Without an intermediary you might as well be 100 km away from the fibre.

Its a little like showing up at a oil refinery asking for 5 litres of petrol. Yes they have petrol but no you're not getting any.
 
In my case this does not help! I am sitting RIGHT ON TOP of DFA Fibre, Neotel Fibre, Telkom Fibre and 300m from MTN fibre. There is a lot of new development in the area - new shopping centre, new housing complexes, new hospital starting next year. I have even offered space with backup power for the ISPs to house their equipment. The best offer so far was for R8.5k per month (2mbps) plus a 30k installation fee. IS quoted me R26k/month for a 1mb/s fibre connection - "they had to install 8.5km of fibre to their node point".

I recently spoke to a Telkom technician busy splicing in the area - there is FTT(Almost everything) 2.5km down the road but it has not been "officially rolled out" - so guess we have to wait till they actually decide to make it available to clients.
 
Sounds like the typical ZA approach of raping everyone with money and monopolising the market
 
Your problem is just having the fibre nearby but no operator with access nodes in the area. You cannot simply splice into a fibre for a residential type customer service.

This.

As I've posted here before - you don't just connect to some fibre and magically get internet.

That fibre needs to be connected to some pretty pricey equipment sitting in a POP somewhere - which then in turn needs to be connected to some local and international backbone.

It'll cost ISPs a lot more than R30k just to provision internet access for you alone.

If there were lots of people in your immediate area that were keen it would probably be a different story.
 
Yup, the problem is point of presence. Although I am sitting right on top of the fibre, (my office is 30m from the junction box, with ducting right up to the office), no one has a point of presence close enough to make it viable to give me an internet connection. Guess it will come, it is just matter of a few years *sic*
 
About 3 months ago, DFA dug up my area in Brakpan and installed fibre right up to the corner of my property. I got all excited and hot and bothered, specially since the fastest fixed line connection in the area is 2mb adsl. Telkom hasn't bothered to upgrade the exchange and the exchange is getting quite slow, specially since it does not have a fibre connection.

Now, I though, someone will be able to get us some proper fibre connections at a good price. I had a look at quite a few FTTB solutions from Vodacom, RSAweb, IS and a few others and it looked like I should at least be able to get myself a nice 40mb/s net connection.

Then I started phoning around. Nothing... Vodacom supplies fibre to their tower, but will not be installing equipment to roll fibre out in the area. MTN same. RSAweb, nothing. IS, nothing. No one wanted to get involved to supply fibre, not even after offering a R30k equipment installation fee. :cry:

My heart is ash :erm:
Hey, please check out my sig and join our effort. I can also give you a flyer to print out and give to people in our area.
 
Our project is finally starting to pick up speed. Getting some members I haven't personally canvassed.
 
Find out where the closest DFA backbone access node is. Its the distance to the closest access node that will determine how viable/difficult it is from someone to supply fibre for you.

It should look like this:
View attachment 238138


Whenever you speak to any ISP's, quote that distance.

So what you saying if you see a manhole with DFA written on it, it's a node. Does anyone have a graph of DFA nodes in cpt SS.

Thanks
 
So what you saying if you see a manhole with DFA written on it, it's a node. Does anyone have a graph of DFA nodes in cpt SS.

Thanks
Even if it's a node it's not of much use. People see fibre and think they should have access but these roll-outs are for infrastructure. It needs to be leased by a service provider to provide internet access through it.
 
Even if it's a node it's not of much use. People see fibre and think they should have access but these roll-outs are for infrastructure. It needs to be leased by a service provider to provide internet access through it.
How do you know if any provider is working in the area
 
How do you know if any provider is working in the area
You wouldn't necessarily know. Would have to contact a bunch of providers to know if anyone is active in the area. Alternatively if you know who laid it you can contact them to find out who's using it. But even if someone is it may be for backhaul and not to provide access.
 
Without an intermediary you might as well be 100 km away from the fibre.

Its a little like showing up at a oil refinery asking for 5 litres of petrol. Yes they have petrol but no you're not getting any.

+1
 
What happeded to Mcwidowmaker? He hasn't checked back in for 10 days?
 
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