Fibre-to-the-home in South Africa: curb your enthusiasm

rpm said:
Fibre-to-the-home in SA: curb your enthusiasm

There are some positive noises being made on South Africa’s fibre front, but a true consumer-level offering is still years away, according to an industry expert
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100% think 5-10 years. But remember that mobile operator's ISP and data services is always more expensive than fixed line. FTTH by Neotel is far cheaper as we speak.
 
but a true consumer-level offering is still years away
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After I read that in the headline, I did not bother opening the article to read further.
 
OMG Van Zyl has aged dramatically! Oh wait, thats just Goldstuck.
 
They can take a flying hike with prices like that. The only thing that is sadder is that half decent ADSL currently costs about half that. I will not be one of the fools that proves the product's viability for them. It would be a R120k investment in THEIR peace of mind and prosperity over 5 years from every single customer. And the infrastructure will last longer than that. And in SA it will just become the de facto standard price. It will take angels from broadband heaven then to actually do the right thing and commit to a long term investment to provide products that can compete - The way utilities and service providers normally do it.

I urge everybody to not support this kind of piracy if/when it arrives. Paying that kind of money for ftth will just perpetuate our problems. The only possible way in which it will make sense is if the Rand halves in value in 3-5, but then we have bigger problems. I'm assuming he meant R2k in today's value.
 
The Trutherizer said:
They can take a flying hike with prices like that. The only thing that is sadder is that half decent ADSL currently costs about half that. I will not be one of the fools that proves the product's viability for them. It would be a R120k investment in THEIR peace of mind and prosperity over 5 years from every single customer. And the infrastructure will last longer than that. And in SA it will just become the de facto standard price. It will take angels from broadband heaven then to actually do the right thing and commit to a long term investment to provide products that can compete - The way utilities and service providers normally do it.

I urge everybody to not support this kind of piracy if/when it arrives. Paying that kind of money for ftth will just perpetuate our problems. The only possible way in which it will make sense is if the Rand halves in value in 3-5, but then we have bigger problems. I'm assuming he meant R2k in today's value.
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I think you are a little confused.

You can't really compare these offerings to ADSL, Fiber has a much lower contention ratio and ping. We are replacing our diginet lines with these and its going to save a bundle and really improve things.

So if you don't mind we will get it anyway with out your permission ?

Run along now.
 
Running Fibre is not cheap. Getting wayleaves for trenching, splicing, fibre Cisco equipment etc etc. Pricing will be expensive in the short to mid term but as the networks grow pricing will come down. One cannot expect R500 for 100mbs uncapped for a good few years.
 
Nerfherder said:
I think you are a little confused.

You can't really compare these offerings to ADSL, Fiber has a much lower contention ratio and ping. We are replacing our diginet lines with these and its going to save a bundle and really improve things.

So if you don't mind we will get it anyway with out your permission ?

Run along now.
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You don't need my permission. I was urging. Not commanding. You can be any type of consumer you want to be. All I know is that R120k invested properly earns you about R1000 a month in interest/dividends with even a modicum of effort. So you could in fact rather just invest the money up front and pay for half decent ADSL off the interest. For me 'personally' that's a much better alternative.

Snarky ahole...
 
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The Trutherizer said:
You don't need my permission. I was urging. Not commanding. You can be any type of consumer you want to be. All I know is that R120k invested properly earns you about R1000 a month in interest/dividends with even a modicum of effort. So you could in fact rather just invest the money up front and pay for half decent ADSL off the interest. For me 'personally' that's a much better alternative.

Snarky ahole...
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Phew thanks, for a second there I was scared I'd actually have to ask your permission on anything I consumed. Thanks for clearing that one up!
 
2012 said:
Phew thanks, for a second there I was scared I'd actually have to ask your permission on anything I consumed. Thanks for clearing that one up!
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Your mistake. Not mine.

In any case. The discussion is around the price of "entry level residential" connections. Not anything that will replace a diginet line any soon.
 
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My enthusiasm has been curbed since around 2005. Now I expect the worst possible outcome in any SA telecoms news, and get pleasantly surprised when things turn out for the better (like when we started getting uncapped)
 
R2000 per month may seem a bit steep but they should come down quickly. I'm sure that there would be much more interest at R1000 per month. When Telkom launched ADSL the monthly cost was around R800 for a 512Kbps service with a 3GB cap. At the time this was also considered excessive but it paved the way for much cheaper and faster services.
 
"entry level residential" ...... YES !

paul5186 said:
Running Fibre is not cheap.
Getting wayleaves for trenching, splicing, fibre Cisco equipment etc etc.
Pricing will be expensive in the short to mid term but as the networks grow pricing will come down.
One cannot expect R500 for 100mbs uncapped for a good few years.
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Perhaps not ....
Telkom have a main line fibre ( which they will be using for the NGN ( MSAN's rollout ) about 200m up the road
In the complex I am in there is already POTS infrastructure ( three copper pairs at my junction ) so running fibre is NOT an issue.
Splicing is an every day job now -- all of the fibre hardware cabling side of things is NOT expensive.
You can get a Cisco Gig ports layer three switch ( with fibre GBICS / SFP ) for about R3,000.00 ( fibre from your junction box just plugs straight in )

I CANNOT see how or why this counts as "rocket-science" and why it should be so difficult or so expensive.

It is the embedded players ( oligopoly ) screwing us over AGAIN !
( contrary to what Jannie or Arthur will tell you. )
 
b@nD said:
I CANNOT see how or why this counts as "rocket-science" and why it should be so difficult or so expensive.
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Whenever we ask industry guys what the biggest hurdle to FTTH is they all eventually mention the cost of providing the last mile. The figures we've been given (by a number of players, which would suggest they all arrive at this independently), are between R40k and R50k to trench and lay fibre into a single house.

So it doesn't seem to be rocket science, but from all the feedback we've got it *is* expensive when you get to the logistics and civils.

As to your specific situation, I was wondering: do you know if your complex has trunks installed where someone can just blow fibre through to the units, or will trenching be necessary?

If you have the infrastructure to make infrastructure deployment easy (there should be a single word for that concept), and your concept is large enough, perhaps you will be high on Telkom's list when it starts rolling out to gated communities in all earnest.
 
b@nD said:
Perhaps not ....
Telkom have a main line fibre ( which they will be using for the NGN ( MSAN's rollout ) about 200m up the road
In the complex I am in there is already POTS infrastructure ( three copper pairs at my junction ) so running fibre is NOT an issue.
Splicing is an every day job now -- all of the fibre hardware cabling side of things is NOT expensive.
You can get a Cisco Gig ports layer three switch ( with fibre GBICS / SFP ) for about R3,000.00 ( fibre from your junction box just plugs straight in )

I CANNOT see how or why this counts as "rocket-science" and why it should be so difficult or so expensive.

It is the embedded players ( oligopoly ) screwing us over AGAIN !
( contrary to what Jannie or Arthur will tell you. )
Click to expand...

Firstly as it stands Telkoms infrastructure is Telkoms. No one can use their MSAN boxes or their backbone fibre cable except Telkom. So either this need to be unbundled....unlikely at the moment, or your ISP has to run fibre to your area, and run individual pairs to each building. This is VERY costly and complex, e.g crossing a road is $$$$$ never minding the wayleaves and closing the road. There are also costs like manholes that needs to be installed to access the fibre (upwards of R10000). Thirdly the hardware infrastructure at the POP is expensive, this is usually tendered out to the likes of Cisco. They will not install Cisco small business swithes there. Yes the hardware at the home/business level is cheap, but this doesnt make the connection cheap.

What will help is local goverments running their own fibre projects, e.g City of Cape Town, Dark Fibre Africa, Neotel, Broadband Infraco, then them reselleing this bandwidth onto ISP's. This will also make connecting a building that is 200m away from one of these lines much cheaper. It is coming, but more likely to businesses, business parks, housing complexes first before homes.
 
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