Click here to learn more about Herotel.<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nThis puts Herotel ahead of other major FNOs in the South African market, including operators with decades of fixed-line infrastructure experience and established customer bases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Take-up measures more than network reach. While homes passed show where fibre has been built, take-up shows whether households actually connect once that infrastructure becomes available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That distinction is important because Herotel measures stands passed, or individual erfs, rather than applying a broader household-level count. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In dense township areas, a single stand may include a main dwelling as well as backrooms or additional residential units, making the company\u2019s passed-base calculation more conservative than many \u201chomes passed\u201d comparisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Herotel also bases its connected-customer figure on active, paying customers rather than a cumulative installation tally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On that basis, Herotel says its 48.6% take-up rate reflects real adoption across its fibre footprint, not only network availability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHomes passed is an important build metric, but it does not tell the whole story,\u201d says Van Zyl Botha, CEO of Herotel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe real question is whether households connect once fibre reaches their street. Take-up shows whether the model is working for customers, not only whether the network has been built.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Herotel\u2019s performance is notable in a market where legacy fixed-line operators have had years of infrastructure, brand familiarity, and existing customer relationships to draw from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Telkom launched commercial ADSL services in 2002 and began FTTH proof-of-concept trials in 2012, while its DSL base peaked at approximately 1.03 million subscribers in early 2016 before declining as fibre adoption increased. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Herotel began scaling its fibre model in 2019 and has grown without the same inherited fixed-line customer base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Herotel\u2019s direct-access model combines ownership of fibre and wireless infrastructure with local deployment, installation, support, and customer service teams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike providers that rely primarily on third-party networks or separated wholesale and retail relationships, Herotel builds, owns, and operates its own fibre and wireless infrastructure, giving it greater control over rollout, performance, pricing, and customer experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn smaller towns and township communities, the relationship with the customer matters. People want affordability, fast installation, local support, and accountability when something goes wrong. That is why our model has been built around owning the network and staying close to the communities we serve,\u201d says Botha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Herotel\u2019s footprint is deliberately different from much of the traditional fibre market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While fibre rollout in South Africa initially concentrated on established metro suburbs, Herotel has focused strongly on secondary towns, peri-urban areas, and underserved communities where reliable fixed connectivity was often limited or unavailable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the report date the company connected 284,000 active customers across over 550 towns, cities, and suburbs, with more than 586,000 homes ready for connection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has also expanded into township communities, including Jouberton, Kanana, and Siyabuswa, with more than 100,000 township customers already live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In selected townships and underserved communities, some customers are consuming more than 1TB of data per month at an effective cost of less than 50 cents per GB, showing how usage changes when connectivity becomes affordable enough to use properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Botha says Herotel\u2019s take-up rate reflects both pent-up demand and the importance of designing fibre around how people actually buy and use connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you build in communities that have been underserved, you cannot assume that coverage alone will solve the problem. You have to make the service accessible, affordable, and dependable. If you get that right, people connect,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Herotel is targeting an additional 800,000 homes in underserved areas, aiming to expand its total footprint to more than 1.4 million homes and reach approximately 6.6 million people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor us, the next phase of fibre growth is not only about how many homes the industry can pass. It is about how many people can use that connection properly, consistently, and affordably. That is where the real measure of impact sits,\u201d concludes Botha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Click here to learn more about Herotel.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Africa Analysis data shows nearly half of Herotel\u2019s passed fibre footprint is actively connected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341030,"featured_media":650164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28937],"tags":[79282,891,29548],"class_list":["post-650162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industrynews","tag-fno","tag-ftth","tag-herotel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650167,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650162\/revisions\/650167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}