on this snarky comment "R1000 for 300m? How? Can I pay you R1000 to trench that distance for me?" I work for a higher salary than that, please check the workforce they use to do these trenches, ignorance is bliss.
now if someone had creative input on who we can contact to get fiber going in the the suburbs in Bloemfontein, please let me know thanks.
I'm sorry that you found my joke as snarky.
Most of us work for a higher salary than that, and so does the team that performs the trenching. It is not the same as digging a hole in your back yard. Excavator hire is approximately R250 per hour, without fuel. Assuming there are no obstructions, no underground pipes, or roots that you have to excavate around, forgetting about the time it takes to plan, get the correct permits and permissions, pay the salary of the team (guys digging, guy manning excavator, manager, overheads of company), the cost of actually laying the fibre, the cost of the fibre itself, other equipment that has to be bought installed and powered, crossing roads, creating manholes for maintenance, fixing accidental damage, closing the trench and leaving the surrounding area in a better condition than they found it, and so on and so on, it is easy to see that it would cost significantly more than R1k for 300 meters.
I have had face to face discussions with about 8 fibre providers for the Lynnwood Fibre Initiative. Most of them estimate the beginning to end cost of trenching around R300 per meter, and it varies significantly depending on what they find in the ground as they go along. Just getting the team there to start digging would already cost more than R1k.
If someone could trench 300m for R1k then everyone would be doing it. There is a lot of competition, and every rand a fibre provider can save they can pass on to the customer to win their business. Heck some of these guys are using robots to lay fibre in your sewage pipes! They are unfortunately not calling it fibre to the toilet.
Here is a list of fibre providers that we have made contact with. It is worth chatting to these guys to determine what they will and will not do.
http://www.lynnwoodfibre.com/technical-intro. The list is not complete, but it could give you a good start.
Fibre providers invest millions to get the fibre in the ground, and they need a return on investment. The best way to lure a fibre provider (to date) is to show them there is interest. To do this spread the message in your community, and ask people to complete a survey where they indicate their interest. Using those interests, and the total number of homes in the area, take it to the fibre providers and ask them what they can deliver (through an RFP preferably). Pick the one with the best proposal and hand over to them to take it further.
