Nokia today announced that fibertime is expanding its fiber broadband access footprint to include an additional 400,000 homes located across South Africa’s underserved communities. The broadband roll-out is part of fibertime’s larger goal of connecting 2 million homes by 2028. Fibertime will deploy a combination of Nokia’s IP and fiber access technologies to build semi-mobile networks in underserved areas, providing end-users with unlimited high-speed internet from anywhere in their home, business or community they live in.
Under the agreement, fibertime will deploy Nokia’s Lightspan access nodes and Wi-Fi 6 enabled fiber access points, using Nokia’s ONT Easy Start to automate and simplify the fiber modem activation process and streamline deployments. Fibertime will also use Nokia’s 7750 Wireless Access Gateway, to create a single SSID on their network that allows customers to walk around the township and stay connected.
“With Nokia’s support, we’re able to significantly ramp up the roll-out of our low-cost, high-speed, fiber internet service to underserved township communities across South Africa. We’re now connecting 1,200 households a day to flexible, high-speed access – up to 950Mbps in some cases – without the need for contracts or debit orders. Once a township is connected, customers simply buy vouchers at a local spaza, retail outlet or via their banking app, enter the voucher number in their fibertime app, and immediately have access to unlimited and unthrottled fiber-to-the-home internet at a cost of R5 per day,” said Danvig De Bruyn, CEO, fibertime.
To help further drive automation and scale across its network, fibertime will also deploy Nokia’s Altiplano and Network Services Platform solutions along with its Altiplano Fiber Health Analyzer which can detect network anomalies and identify potential issues before they escalate.
“Nokia’s automation and AI-powered tools not only help us to improve operational efficiencies but also enhance the reliability of our FTTH network. We can now detect disruptions earlier and resolve incidents more quickly to ultimately improve the subscriber experience,” said Danvig De Bruyn, CEO, fibertime.
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Fast growing economy: Harvard’s Centre for International Development (CID) has estimated that the three fastest-growing economies until 2026 will be India, Uganda, and Egypt, growing at 7.89%, 7.46%, and 6.63% respectively. South Africa is projected to grow at 4.9% annually until 2026. This is an indication that the socio-political sphere will eventually stabilise and thus there is no reason to fear to have to start a new business.