CENTURION, Gauteng – 10 December 2012 – Trenching has begun in Klerksdorp, Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) will be investing in excess of R81 million over the next 6 months and will deploying over 120 kilometres of optic fibre. The company’s expenditure plan is in excess of R3.5 billion and it has already trenched more than 6 700 kilometres of optic fibre across South Africa.
DFA’s optic fibre network is expanding to smaller cities and towns at a rapid pace, enabling Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to offer their services to new markets. It will launch Klerksdorp into the digital age. More importantly, the socio economic benefits of fibre optic networks are vast, affordable broadband contributes to increased economic activity.
The company’s CEO Gustav Smit says DFA’s network is the fastest-growing open-access optical fibre infrastructure in the country. “We are the carrier of carriers, providing infrastructure to three of the top four cellular providers, to seven of the top eight Internet services providers, to one of the two fixed-line operators, to the country’s largest media conglomerates, to educational institutions, to open-access data centres, and to major metro municipalities.”
“The network is used by companies such as cellular network operators Cell C, Vodacom, MTN and landline network operator Telkom as well as ISPs like IS and MWeb, media companies and high Internet usage corporations,” he explains.
DFA’s 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 SAT 3 cable at Melkbosstrand in the Western Cape.
The deployment of metro and long haul open access ducting, optimised for fibre network deployment, will enable larger users of communications capacity to enjoy logical separation and ownership of communications capacity, while sharing the same physical right of way and access routes with other carriers.
“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. We will be taking on some risk as we work to get fibre to every business and many homes, we anticipate 20 percent take-up over the next four years”, Smit 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