Telkom 100Mbps fibre broadband launch plans

Telkom expects to commercially launch fibre-to-the-home in South Africa before the end of 2014, managing executive for Telkom’s product house, Steve Lewis, has told MyBroadband.

Previously Telkom revealed that technical trials are underway in 2 business parks, 3 gated communities, and a leafy suburb.

According to Lewis, the home trials are currently running in La Pama in Durban; Plantations in Durban; and Somerset in Gauteng.

“We are looking at other areas,” Lewis said.

Customers on the trial are provided with free connectivity to Telkom’s fibre network, including equipment that should be familiar to DSL customers, Lewis explained.

Similar to copper, the fibre has to be extended into the home or business and then a router is connected that offers Ethernet ports and a Wi-Fi access point.

Using Gigabit Passive Optical Network technology, they are able to provide speeds of up to 100Mbps, Lewis said.

Asked about the products consumers can look forward to, Lewis said that fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) is still being productised and that it’ll take another year to go through product processes.

He said that they will use all the technical information from the trial (which is set to end before January 2014) to develop their FTTH product and set the pricing.

Telkom also hasn’t decided which areas they would launch in just yet, but Lewis said they will obviously target areas in which it makes the most business sense to launch, such as gated communities and business parks.

He said that the roll-out of fibre services is not necessarily dependent on Telkom’s MSAN roll-out, and that they can deploy fibre wherever there is demand.

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