MTN fibre-to-the-home prices, other details

MTN recently demonstrated its fibre to the home (FTTH) product to residents of Monaghan Farm on 12 April 2014 – a service which the group says is capable of 100Mbps.

MTN said that it is aggressively deploying fibre infrastructure in high-density urban areas, such as high-end gated communities, boomed-off suburbs and high-rise buildings.

“The official commercial launch for the product is set for 1 June 2014, with advanced discussions underway with several additional residential sites,” MTN said.

The roll-out is an extension of MTN’s fibre connectivity backbone, utilising Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology, to business parks and residential estates in all major cities.

MTN FTTH in Monaghan Farm

MTN says that the estimated connectivity date for homes in the Monaghan Farm estate is mid-May.

Monaghan Farm’s Chandre Buys said that between 60% and 80% of the estates’ 50 residents signed up for the MTN FTTH service.

Buys said that MTN is rolling out a new fibre network in the estate, replacing the legacy network built by iBurst and Broadlink.

In 2009, iBurst introduced fibre based triple-play services at Monaghan Farm,offering voice, video and data services to houses on the estate via an iBurst data centre, situated at the Monaghan Farm admin block.

iBurst and Broadlink then withdrew from Monaghan Farm, opening up the estate for a new player – and MTN stepped in.

MTN confirmed that it has engaged with the Monaghan Farm management directly and is not in discussions with any other infrastructure provider.

“MTN is providing its own infrastructure to ensure the provision of world-class, industry-leading technology – addressing the estate’s current mobile and fixed broadband connectivity challenges,” MTN said.

MTN is deploying a GPON fibre network in Monaghan Farm, and is currently connecting the houses of the residents who signed up for the offer.

“Speed trials at the pre-launch event clocked up to 150.2Mbps, while earlier this year, [we] demonstrated lab trials of up to 1Gbps on [our] fibre network,” MTN said.

MTN fibre pricing in Monaghan Farm

MTN said that its FTTH offers in Monaghan Farm vary based on desired internet speed – ranging from 10Mbps to 100Mbps.

MTN said that pricing is currently only available to residents, and is negotiated on a case-by-case basis, dependent on the amount of infrastructure and civil engineering required for each estate.

Monaghan Farm residents informed MyBroadband that they have been offered two speeds: 10Mbps and 40Mbps. Although a 100Mbps service was demonstrated, it does not seem to have been offered to residents yet.

MTN’s FTTH customers in Monaghan Farm will have to pay three monthly fees to be connected – an access fee, a line speed fee and a data charge.

The following table provides an overview of the total cost of an FTTH service from MTN in Monaghan Farm.

It should be noted that these prices are not official, and MTN refused to confirm whether the prices are accurate or not.

More on fibre to the home

100Mbps MTN fibre-to-the-home commercial launch announced

Vodacom fibre-to-the-home on its way

Vodacom’s big broadband plans: FTTH, LTE and 3G