DFA acquires last mile company

Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) says it is in the process of acquiring open access fibre optic infrastructure provider, Conduct, for an undisclosed sum.
The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of March, pending the necessary approvals.
Reshaad Sha, chief strategy officer at DFA, said: “The Conduct acquisition gives us an overnight presence as a last mile provider and, importantly, puts into motion our strategy to connect as many customers to our fibre network as possible in a cost effective way.”
Sha noted that DFA has identified a largely unmet need in the market for cost-effective fibre connectivity to enterprise customers.
“Our customers, being Internet Service Providers and telecoms operators, therefore require an underlying solution that accelerates business connectivity more economically,” he says.
“DFA has focused its efforts on building a product set to lower or remove, this barrier to entry,” said Sha.
Johan Pretorius, CEO at Conduct, said: “Conduct’s last-mile network enables enterprises to get access to fibre very rapidly. Combining this last mile infrastructure with DFA’s metro network provides ISPs instant access to new customers whilst businesses benefit from fibre.”
DFA, through its ISP partner network, aims to connect up to 10,000 business customers to its fibre network by March 2015.
The group said last year that it aimed to have a fibre network exceeding 8,500km across South Africa, by March.
The group said it will make all the capital investments required to build out this last mile fibre network where it currently has a metro network presence across South Africa.
DFA is the key operating company of CIV (Community Investment Ventures), in which JSE-listed holding company, Remgro, has an effective interest of 43.8%.
Conduct was launched in SA in 2012 by The Birchman Group, international business providing consulting and IT services, and headquartered in the UK.
In April last year, former Dimension Data director, Richard Came acquired a 10% shareholding in Conduct Telecoms, taking up the position as chairman of the Conduct board.
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