How much providers really ask to supply fibre-to-the-home

Residents from Constantia in Cape Town launched a request for proposals (RFP) in February as part of a drive to get fibre-to-the-home in their neighbourhood.

The Constantia Fibre Initiative (CFI) said that since it started in January, more than 1,500 residents have registered on its website and indicated their interest in receiving FTTH.

“Since then, we have been in touch with more than 25 fibre operators and Internet service providers,” said Martin Diessner from the CFI.

The “Fibre to Constantia” initiative received 11 written RFP responses from service providers.

The companies which submitted proposals include Telkom, Vodacom, MTN, Smart Village, and 123Net.

Diessner added that they have been asked to expand their fibre rollout beyond the main Constantia area.

“Neighbouring residents from Tokai, Bergvliet, Doordrift and Meadowridge have already started registering on our website,” said Diessner.

He said that upon requests from Hout Bay, Llandudno, Fresnaye, Franschhoek and Somerset West, they have made their platform available to other communities.

Fibre provider comparison

The CFI published the proposals from all the respondents on its website, giving insight into how the providers stack up against each other.

The next step for the fibre initiative is to review the proposals, after which a provider to roll out fibre in the area will be selected.

The following table gives an overview of the fibre-to-the-home proposals from the major providers.

Fibre to Constantia proposals for 100Mbps service
Provider	Uptime guarantee	Installation	Monthly fibre price for 100Mbps
Link Africa	—	R1,710	R570
Telkom	98.5%	R1,710	R706
123Net	99.9%	R1,500	R799 (1Gbps with uncapped data)
MTN	99.95%	R3,000	R879
Light Fibre	97%	R2,499	R999 (with 100GB data)
Snowball	99.8%	—	R1,399 (with 300GB data)
Vodacom	95%	R899	R1,799 (with 200GB data)
Sonic Wireless	99%	—	—
Octotel	99.5%	R6,500	—
Smart Village	98%	—	—