Telkom’s fibre business booming

Telkom announced that its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) business, Openserve, has increased the number of homes connected by 19.5%, bringing its overall connection rate to just below 50%.

This was announced in the company’s update for the first quarter ending 30 June 2024.

Because of the 19.5% increase in homes connected or growth from 590,527 to 615,430 homes since March, Openserve’s connection rate now sits at 49%.

This connection rate is the proportion of homes connected over homes passed.

It is a measure of how economically feasible an FNO’s rollouts were and how successful it and its ISP partners were at convincing potential customers to buy a fibre service.

Homes connected either refers to the number of homes with a line from that FNO installed into their homes or how many homes have an active connection with that FNO.

There is no industry standard way to report the figure. Openserve uses the former approach, counting all homes with lines already installed but not necessarily active as “connected”.

The latter is arguably the better way to measure this number because it provides a more accurate view of the connectivity ratio.

Homes passed refers to how many residential properties have access to a particular FNO’s network, including those not connected to it.

Openserve’s homes passed number increased to 1,256,603 homes from 1,217,110 in March, a 13.4% change from the previous quarter. Thus, its connection rate is now 49%.

Because of Openserve’s increase in homes connected, the FNO saw a 33% increase in data consumption to 681 petabytes or 681,000 terabytes.

The network’s uptime also remained stable, with its access, transport, and core layers achieving uptimes of 99.5%, 99.91%, and 99.99%, respectively.

MyBroadband recently asked South Africa’s biggest FNOs for their latest homes connected and passed figures and whether their focus was on buildouts or improving connectivity ratios.

Herotel, MetroFibre, Octotel, Vodacom, and Zoom Fibre provided feedback. Openserve’s latest data has been added.

The table below contains their latest key metrics with the most recent available data from the four other biggest FTTH networks in South Africa.

Fibre network operator	Homes passed Households that have access to a particular network	Homes connected Households that have line for that network in their building	Last reported connectivity ratio Percentage of homes with access to particular network that have installed line
Vumatel	2,000,000 (August 2023)	664,000* (August 2023)	33.20%
Openserve	1,256,603 (June 2024)	615,430 (June 2024)	48.97%
Herotel	581,464 (June 2024)	168,308 (June 2024)	28.95%
MetroFibre	517,000 (June 2024)	165,600 (June 2024)	32.03%
Frogfoot	361,000 (September 2023)	151,000 (September 2023)	41.83%
Octotel	360,000 (June 2024)	112,500 (June 2024)	31.25%
Zoom Fibre	191,636 (June 2024)	65,100 (June 2024)	33.97%
Vodacom	165,879** (March 2024)	Unknown	Unknown
Evotel	141,000 (March 2023)	39,000 (March 2023)	27.66%
* Based on last reported connectivity ratio. ** Includes households and businesses.

Openserve is playing catch up with Vumatel, which had over double its homes passed late last year.

However, Openserve is breathing down Vumatel’s neck when it comes to homes connected, with a gap of less than 100,000 households.

Herotel only increased its network coverage by 2.8% during the first half of the year.

However, its homes connected figure increased by 21.1%, significantly improving the connectivity ratio. That has been the FNO’s primary focus in 2024.

It also added 10,000 customers in July, a new Herotel record.

Herotel only counts homes with active connections in its “homes connected” statistic.

MetroFibre extended its coverage to about 15,800 households, a 3.15% increase over the start of the year.

The FNO told MyBroadband that it was approving new projects and builds on a case-by-case basis.

“Our focus is also on driving the connectivity ratio,” MetroFibre said.

Octotel’s homes passed increased by 10,000 to reach 360,000, working out to a 2.85% jump. The company told MyBroadband that its rollout strategy would continue as normal.

“Focus has, and always will be heavily focused on customer connections, but if the build rate slows down, logically your connected ratio will increase,” the FNO said. We focus on both and the relevant targets attached to each.

Zoom Fibre’s homes passed figure increased marginally from 191,000 in November 2023 to 191,636.

However, the operator told MyBroadband that it was currently focused more on improving its connectivity ratio than rapid expansion.

Vodacom’s fibre network expansion has ground to a virtual halt since 2022. Since then, it has only added about 2,000 homes and businesses to its coverage.

It did not expand its fibre network at all between the start of the year and the end of June.

It is currently in a transaction to merge its fibre assets with Vumatel and DFA, which would radically increase the size of its network.