Connecting to Fibre (DFA)

Zertop

Zertop

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Hi All,

I have a live DFA fibre line running straight past my house - and I was wanting to know whether there were any ISP's that would allow me to connect to it? I know there are offerings, however they seem to require a whole bunch of houses to sign up so that its worth it for them to put infrastructure in - which makes perfect sense - but for me it seems there is already infrastructure in place, just no way to connect to it.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks
Z
 
Zertop said:
Hi All,

I have a live DFA fibre line running straight past my house - and I was wanting to know whether there were any ISP's that would allow me to connect to it? I know there are offerings, however they seem to require a whole bunch of houses to sign up so that its worth it for them to put infrastructure in - which makes perfect sense - but for me it seems there is already infrastructure in place, just no way to connect to it.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks
Z
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You can't "connect" to fibre running past your house. You need to be connected to the fibre exchange, which is probably a few km's away. Even if you offer to pay for the R20 000 - R100 000 install they will tell you no, not allowed
 
irBosOtter said:
You can't "connect" to fibre running past your house. You need to be connected to the fibre exchange, which is probably a few km's away. Even if you offer to pay for the R20 000 - R100 000 install they will tell you no, not allowed
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As far as I know, there are a few fibre DB boxes along the way (should have probably specified that in my original post :p ). Could I not connect to those?

Z

EDIT: Just out of interest - these cables are live, so they must be serving somebody? What type of work is needed to start servicing home clients?
 
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Zertop said:
As far as I know, there are a few fibre DB boxes along the way (should have probably specified that in my original post :p ). Could I not connect to those?

Z
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I tried that, but they just told me no, it's not for residential use, maybe you will have better luck seeing you have a few exchanges close by, my closest one is 4.8km away from me.
My driveway was dug up twice in the last 2 years for fibre by DFA, very irritating to know it's running right there lol
 
irBosOtter said:
I tried that, but they just told me no, it's not for residential use, maybe you will have better luck seeing you have a few exchanges close by, my closest one is 4.8km away from me.
My driveway was dug up twice in the last 2 years for fibre by DFA, very irritating to know it's running right there lol
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Aah damn :/

They quite literally lay them down in front of me. 2 metres away, yet have no way to connect :p

Z
 
saturnz said:
I think thats for HOA and Bodies Corporate. Its actually a model I suggested to them when I contracted for my fibre.
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Yeah, pretty much, and thats the story with all isps and fibre atm. They offer FTTH but don't actually offer FTTH. I've been looking for fibre for a while, this was one of many I contacted a few weeks back as its requirements were simple and prices amazing, i.e., 20mb uncapped @R899 FTTH within 25km radius of Rosebank. Which I got excited about, yay, fibre soon etc, after all, their line runs outside my door etc... only to find out, on ordering that no, they can't install FTTH to houses:wtf: They must stop advertising these products as FTTH
 
ellyally said:
Yeah, pretty much, and thats the story with all isps and fibre atm. They offer FTTH but don't actually offer FTTH. I've been looking for fibre for a while, this was one of many I contacted a few weeks back as its requirements were simple and prices amazing, i.e., 20mb uncapped @R899 FTTH within 25km radius of Rosebank. Which I got excited about, yay, fibre soon etc, after all, their line runs outside my door etc... only to find out, on ordering that no, they can't install FTTH to houses:wtf: They must stop advertising these products as FTTH
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actually it slipped my mind

If you can get 5 stand alone houses in your area to agree to incur the installation costs (R1500 per house IIRC) and contract, they will treat those five houses as a complex and supply you with internet.

So yes Cybersmart will supply to stand alone houses, if you can get five of them interested.
 
saturnz said:
actually it slipped my mind

If you can get 5 stand alone houses in your area to agree to incur the installation costs (R1500 per house IIRC) and contract, they will treat those five houses as a complex and supply you with internet.

So yes Cybersmart will supply to stand alone houses, if you can get five of them interested.
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Yeah, got that from them (all I contacted have similar concept). Lightspeed/cybersmart for example want a minimum of R10k monthly in contracts on your street/block before they'll consider installing for you. Point being though, the fibre already exists, they say they offer FTTH in the area, but expect the end user to do their marketing and sales for them. All they have to do is drop a few flyers off in the area and they'd have the business over night, but instead, they wait for one person to stumble across the website, place an order, then once order is in, they say 'we can't install unless you get Rx value for us monthly'.
 
ellyally said:
Yeah, got that from them (all I contacted have similar concept). Lightspeed/cybersmart for example want a minimum of R10k monthly in contracts on your street/block before they'll consider installing for you. Point being though, the fibre already exists, they say they offer FTTH in the area, but expect the end user to do their marketing and sales for them. All they have to do is drop a few flyers off in the area and they'd have the business over night, but instead, they wait for one person to stumble across the website, place an order, then once order is in, they say 'we can't install unless you get Rx value for us monthly'.
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I suppose they are in the business of supplying internet and not in the marketing business.

I agree their approach is a bit bizarre but it does leave opportunities open for oneself. For example I actually did raise the R10k monthly charge, but now all additional money above the 10k comes to us and doesn't go to the ISP. So effectively you can make money from being a reseller as such.
 
There is fibre everywhere these days. Its all heavy commercial links though, so your chance of connecting as a residential customer is approximately zero even if you're sitting on top of it. You can try neotel but they're going to quote you business fibre rates / tell you to go away.

All that should change in the next couple of years though..
 
saturnz said:
I suppose they are in the business of supplying internet and not in the marketing business.

I agree their approach is a bit bizarre but it does leave opportunities open for oneself. For example I actually did raise the R10k monthly charge, but now all additional money above the 10k comes to us and doesn't go to the ISP. So effectively you can make money from being a reseller as such.
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Wait, so if I organise 50k worth of contracts for them in my neighbourhood, they only take 10k and I get 40k monthly? Doesn't sound right or did I miss something? Those contracts require data/connections etc which all cost cash monthly, they aren't giving fibre away for free.
 
ellyally said:
Wait, so if I organise 50k worth of contracts for them in my neighbourhood, they only take 10k and I get 40k monthly? Doesn't sound right or did I miss something? Those contracts require data/connections etc which all cost cash monthly, they aren't giving fibre away for free.
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thats what I've organised with my body corporate

The BC pays 10k a month for their 100mbps line, its shared amongst 30 owners at R400pm, there are 97 units in the building.

Once the product goes live more people will probably sign up, so lets say 60 users at R400pm, that would be R24 000pm, R10 000 goes to Cybersmart and the rest comes to us.

The cable has just been installed into our server room, we are just waiting for it to activated now.

I don't see why the same principle can't be applied elsewhere, even to a neighbourhood, you however would take responsibility of distributing the internet to those people, thats a problem you will have to solve, but I don't think its a difficult one if everyone in the neighbourhood works towards that goal.
 
saturnz said:
thats what I've organised with my body corporate

The BC pays 10k a month for their 100mbps line, its shared amongst 30 owners at R400pm, there are 97 units in the building.

Once the product goes live more people will probably sign up, so lets say 60 users at R400pm, that would be R24 000pm, R10 000 goes to Cybersmart and the rest comes to us.

The cable has just been installed into our server room, we are just waiting for it to activated now.

I don't see why the same principle can't be applied elsewhere, even to a neighbourhood, you however would take responsibility of distributing the internet to those people, thats a problem you will have to solve, but I don't think its a difficult one if everyone in the neighbourhood works towards that goal.
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Ah, I see what you saying now, sounds like a sweet deal... I was looking at it like the line+data packages they advertise, i.e., 10mb uncapped fibre line @R499 etc, where you'd supply 100 homes with 50mb line + data packages and all cybersmart takes is 10k a month, meaning they'd lose 10's of thousands in data costs alone.

You are providing lines, and they provide data at additional cost to customer, and I'm assuming open access to isps not just cybersmart.

Still begs the question though, why advertise line+data bundle FTTH if you don't do it and require a 'middle man' such as BC or small group of home owners to actually get it installed. I would understand if these isps had pricing on data only, but its misleading to me saying things like 'FTTH 10mb uncapped fibre line @R499 within 25km radius of Rosebank with install fee of approx. R1.5k'. I call and order, expecting a 10mb fibre line to be installed for approx R1.5k, with uncapped data and rental for R499pm, but none of that happens.
 
ellyally said:
Ah, I see what you saying now, sounds like a sweet deal... I was looking at it like the line+data packages they advertise, i.e., 10mb uncapped fibre line @R499 etc, where you'd supply 100 homes with 50mb line + data packages and all cybersmart takes is 10k a month, meaning they'd lose 10's of thousands in data costs alone.

You are providing lines, and they provide data at additional cost to customer, and I'm assuming open access to isps not just cybersmart.

Still begs the question though, why advertise line+data bundle FTTH if you don't do it and require a 'middle man' such as BC or small group of home owners to actually get it installed. I would understand if these isps had pricing on data only, but its misleading to me saying things like 'FTTH 10mb uncapped fibre line @R499 within 25km radius of Rosebank with install fee of approx. R1.5k'. I call and order, expecting a 10mb fibre line to be installed for approx R1.5k, with uncapped data and rental for R499pm, but none of that happens.
Click to expand...


thats why they have terms and conditions
 
saturnz said:
thats what I've organised with my body corporate

The BC pays 10k a month for their 100mbps line, its shared amongst 30 owners at R400pm, there are 97 units in the building.

Once the product goes live more people will probably sign up, so lets say 60 users at R400pm, that would be R24 000pm, R10 000 goes to Cybersmart and the rest comes to us.

The cable has just been installed into our server room, we are just waiting for it to activated now.

I don't see why the same principle can't be applied elsewhere, even to a neighbourhood, you however would take responsibility of distributing the internet to those people, thats a problem you will have to solve, but I don't think its a difficult one if everyone in the neighbourhood works towards that goal.
Click to expand...

Not sure how 30 owners will feel sharing 1-10Mbps max international bandwidth, these cheap 100Mb uncapped fibre lines are only 100Mbps local, price goes up x10 if you want decent international speeds as well. We have one, max international bandwidth to date was about 8Mbps down and 4Mbps up.... got a 15Mb 1:1 line and that one can always max out, local and international, but paying 3 times the price for it compared to the 100Mb line
 
irBosOtter said:
Not sure how 30 owners will feel sharing 1-10Mbps max international bandwidth, these cheap 100Mb uncapped fibre lines are only 100Mbps local, price goes up x10 if you want decent international speeds as well. We have one, max international bandwidth to date was about 8Mbps down and 4Mbps up.... got a 15Mb 1:1 line and that one can always max out, local and international, but paying 3 times the price for it compared to the 100Mb line
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they currently share one 10mbps ADSL line and pay R200 for 10GB of data, so yeah they will be ecstatic to pay R400pm for uncapped data and access to a 100mbps fibre line unless you can show some other maths that I'm not aware of?
 
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saturnz said:
thats why they have terms and conditions
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T&C can't protect against bs advertising... Thats what it is, bs, plain and simple. I can't advertise a car for sale for R100 then in terms and conditions say it requires 3000 people to each pay R100 and you get to share it.
 
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