The open access fibre battle

ok so how much for fibre internet in my complex?
 
It's highly unlikely FibreCo will get off the ground.

Firstly, as indicated by many, there are already a number of players in this field.

But most importantly, customers (including Cell C and IS) cannot wait for 3 years. They need the capacity right now to connect their HSPA+ towers and corporate customers.

It does not make sense to build yet another fibre network. Best solution would be for this consortium to buy Infraco out.
 
There can be only one: Open access fibre battle
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Like there can be only one fixed line provider? Ya, we all know where that's gotten us.
 
frizbee said:
Except when you dig deeper, they are all the same player.
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DFA?

They basically lay the cables, but do not light them or build products on top of them. At least not now. It's a logical next step for DFA to enter the networking game at some point.
 
Wait, they sell fibre pairs?

Even seacom only has 2 fibre pairs. How many pairs could they possible be laying? and at what cost?
 
TwoCents1000 said:
DFA?

They basically lay the cables, but do not light them or build products on top of them. At least not now. It's a logical next step for DFA to enter the networking game at some point.
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I highly doubt that will ever happen. In fact I would be very surprised if DFA haven't signed contracts stating that they will not enter the services market.
 
icyrus said:
I highly doubt that will ever happen. In fact I would be very surprised if DFA haven't signed contracts stating that they will not enter the services market.
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I'm not so sure.

I suspect Came has been very clever in all of this. Get all the operators to fund laying infrastructure down. But while I'm digging up the road to lay your fiber, I'll just add another pair (or six) for "future expansion".

And, one day when all the fiber is in the ground, I can just light up my own network.

Call this my "prophetic statement" and let's see if it comes true. :)

BTW, DFA recently bought network and services licenses. Wonder why? ;)
 
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zamicro said:
There is definitely space for more than one provider. Bandwidth demands will keep growing at a huge rate, so even if it seems as if there is more than enough now, there will soon be a shortage.
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For a national long distance network, the issue is not capacity - one fibre pair could carry the whole of South Africa's bandwidth - but diversity. However, this only makes sense for the first two or maybe three networks.

Once there is aggressive price competition, which typically happens at about the point that one of the players starts to go bankrupt (my guess is when there are four national networks), prices will tend towards the economic ideal of marginal cost. At this point, if there is not enough business to go around, one of the networks will be bought by another, or one of them will simply shut down. In South Africa, I guess the most likely is a buy out.

We're still quite a long way from marginal cost, but telecoms prices are known to plummet in overbuild situations like this. As in many markets, only the strongest are likely to survive. Also, as has been seen in other markets, one can have overbuild and collapse of the national long distance market without any substantial benefit to the broadband access market. I wouldn't be so keen on lots of national networks. What we really need is fibre to the home.
 
TwoCents1000 said:
It's highly unlikely FibreCo will get off the ground.

Firstly, as indicated by many, there are already a number of players in this field.

But most importantly, customers (including Cell C and IS) cannot wait for 3 years. They need the capacity right now to connect their HSPA+ towers and corporate customers.

It does not make sense to build yet another fibre network. Best solution would be for this consortium to buy Infraco out.
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I wonder if Infranco would sell out - I doubt it - even though their mandate is simply to foster competition in the wholesale sector. BI is just another slice of the pie that guavamint has taken a stab at.

icyrus said:
I highly doubt that will ever happen. In fact I would be very surprised if DFA haven't signed contracts stating that they will not enter the services market.
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IIRC that sounds right.
I was at the MyBB conference when DFA was there and Mr. Came was quite adamant that they're only looking at providing Dark Fibre and maintaining it.

ads said:
What we really need is fibre to the home.
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That's we all really want - I hope that i-ECNS license holders can work together to make it happen once LLU is sorted. (If it's ever going to be sorted)

At the moment besides Telkom and Neotel, there is no complete long haul fibre ring (if I'm not mistaken)
Neotel, VC and MTN are only done with their leg from DBN to JHB.

If anyone goes bust, the infrastructure will still be in the ground for someone to make use of - that's all I care about :)
 
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Terrestrial

I wonder why these people are all going and DIGGING everywhere
and
right next to the highway
where you already have BIG water pipelines / Petro-Chemical pipelines and all the other crap like water reticulation and sewerage etc etc

This is what happens

BUSINESS was severely disrupted in and around the Willowton Industrial Park yesterday
after construction workers working along Chota Motala Road mistakenly damaged a Telkom cable....
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Why not go aboreal along the TFR Rail / Eskom network ??????

I see some of these "national" fibre people start looking at LLU --
IF you have cell phone towers ( and associated buildings ) do you need a huge big exchange building to terminate your LL

HHhhmmmm
 
ads said:
... Once there is aggressive price competition, which typically happens at about the point that one of the players starts to go bankrupt (my guess is when there are four national networks), prices will tend towards the economic ideal of marginal cost.
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In most situations like these where the hurdles to entry are significant what tends to happen is more of an oligopoly than an all out price war. New entrants track the higher pricing of the incumbents rather than challenge the status quo. Why would they...there's a higher gross profit if they don't fight. Also don't forget that this is a last-mover-more-expensive-network in terms of costs. Newer networks are hardly ever built at a cheaper cost than those that went into the ground a few years or even decades back.

There is no incentive for them to charge less unless the technology that they provide is fundamentally different to the status quo e.g. multiple copper lines versus a single fibre offering hot-upgradeable or donwgradeable services.

In a price war the businesses that usuallydie first are the one's with the highest cost... in other words, those that entered the game last.
 
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