While I know the wait is hard, fibre has crossed over one an a half million homes in South Africa. If my numbers are right, that’s one in 3 urban homes. At a private investment of well over R20 billion so far (that’s just FTTH and doesnt factor in the core and backhaul networks that have made this happen, let alone business and international cable systems). This all in the 5 years since Vumatel fibred up Parkhurst. It takes time and money and I’m pretty sure fibre will reach you sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, fibre is still extremely expensive to install and FNOs have a real mandate to recoup the costs I’ve mentioned above. We’re one of the few countries that don’t have state subsidised Telco networks. Even Telkom is mostly privatised now. This means the FNOs are rolling out along two paths: 1. Where uptake will at least equal the investment and 2. Where uptake is relatively close to a core network that’s affordable to use because the internet needs to come from somewhere.
In the meanwhile we’re seeing wireless internet providers (not mobile operators) really improve their offering and compete (if not in speed, then in quality) with the fibre operators. Support these guys as they’re the most likely to build a fibre network in your area given enough uptake.
