CENTURION, Gauteng – 18 August 2012 – Local open access dark fibre infrastructure provider, Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), has announced that it will be deploying a 27 kilometre fibre infrastructure in Mossel Bay to the value of R18 million. DFA provides the infrastructure that enables licensed operators like Vodacom, MTN and Cell C, as well as ISPs like MWEB and Internet Solutions (IS) to give communities access to the network.
DFA will launch towns such as Mossel Bay into the digital age and will also bring significant investment into these areas. Furthermore, the socio economic benefits of fibre optic networks are vast, affordable broadband contributes to increased economic activity.
The company started rolling out its network in metropolitan areas in October 2007 and has already laid in excess of 6 200 kilometres of infrastructure. This forms part of a R3.5-billion national fibre network that will increase bandwidth and reduce Internet costs significantly.
The company’s CEO Gustav Smit says this infrastructure is open to all licensed players, on equal terms. “DFA assumes the role of physical infrastructure developer, funds the rollout and provides all operators with a first-class secure ducting infrastructure on which licensed operators can build their services. Any service provider, licensed to do so by ICASA, may rent fibres from DFA for their own transmission and backbone infrastructure purposes.”
“Our footprint extends nationally and links with the SEACOM, EASSy, SAFE and the SAT3 cables at Mtunzini in KwaZulu Natal and links to the WACS cable at Yzerfontein and the SAT3 cable at Melkbosstrand in the Western Cape,” he explains.
He says expansion of communications infrastructure brings about new business opportunities that are dependent on broadband. “Open Access broadband also stimulates competition within the telecommunications market, ultimately reducing Internet costs. DFA is here to provide a long term sustainable solution to the local community.”
“South Africans simply don’t know what 20Mbps or 100Mbps to the home means. An opportunity needs to be created for users to test drive serious broadband and ISPs need to play a leading role in mobilising communities,” he concludes.
DFA is the premier wholesale, open-access fibre-infrastructure and -connectivity provider in South Africa. We finance, build, install, manage, and maintain a world-class fibre network to transmit metro and long-haul telecommunications traffic. We started rolling out our fibre network in 2007, and to date, we have deployed over 13,000 km of ducting infrastructure in major metros, secondary cities, and smaller towns. Our network runs with an industry-leading uptime of 99.98%. We lease our secure transmission and backbone fibre infrastructure and provide associated connectivity services to telecommunications operators, Internet service providers, media conglomerates, tertiary education institutions, municipalities, government organizations, and other businesses, large and small, on equal terms. DFA is a Level 3 B-BBEE Contributor on the ICT Sector Codes.
Press contacts
Tribeca PR for DFA
dfa@tribecapr.co.za