Strandfontein Fibre Initiative
Phase 1: Old Village
STRANDFONTEIN FIBRE INITIATIVE
Currently residents in the Old Strandfontein mainly make use of Telkom ADSL to access the internet in their homes via their old copper telephone lines. Some make use of mobile or fixed LTE data services which are prohibitively expensive as we all know. DATA MUST FALL.
Due to the age of the infrastructure ADSL is highly susceptible to cable damage and besides cable damage, theft is a regular occurrence with Telkom taking centuries to repair the faults, if they do at all. Unfortunately, the ADSL infrastructure in the area is outdated and the distance from the Telkom Internet Exchanges means many residents in Old Strandfontein cannot obtain ADSL speeds in excess of 2mbs or 4mbs.
WHAT IS FTTH?
Fibre transmits information as light impulses along flexible glass fibres at incredible speed, allowing users to achieve speeds of up to 1,000Mbps.
Running on its own optic network means users will not be dependant on Telkom copper lines and will therefore not pay the additional R199 per month for internet connection.
ADSL runs over existing Telkom copper wire infrastructure which can be unreliable, heavily contended, and offers average speeds of around 4Mbps.
WHY FIBRE?
Put simply, a DStv Premium subscription is now more expensive than an uncapped 10Mbps fibre-to-the-home connection and Netflix subscription combined.
If you are on an ADSL connection, we have bad news for you – you are paying much more than fibre users for the same speeds. The term “same speed” is used loosely – ADSL is notorious for not delivering its maximum “up to” download speeds, and your upload speeds are nowhere near as fast as a fibre connection.
MyBroadband looked at uncapped ADSL and fibre prices in South Africa and found that ADSL users are getting a raw deal.
For example, a 4Mbps home uncapped ADSL package from Afrihost costs R619 per month – including ADSL line rental, your mandatory landline rental, and the ISP’s uncapped data package.
A 4Mbps home uncapped package from Afrihost on Openserve fibre, however, costs R419 per month. These fibre users also receive a 5Mbps upload speed, while ADSL upload speeds are much slower than this.
Fibre is also more stable than ADSL, even when you are far away from an Telkom internet exchange. ADSL line speeds can deteriorate rapidly as the line gets longer between connection points.
Elements like water, besides theft, also affect the performance of ADSL.
A MyBroadband investigation compared uncapped package pricing from a range of ISPs on ADSL and Openserve fibre.
The reason for selecting Openserve fibre is that this is the same company which supplies all ADSL and copper landlines in South Africa.
When looking at the ADSL prices, the ISP data account, ADSL line rental fees, and the landline rental fee – R200.74 – were taken into account.
With the fibre packages, the prices are typically advertised as all inclusive, and the monthly price you see includes the fibre line and the data account.
As shown in the table below, uncapped fibre packages from Afrihost, Axxess, Webafrica, and MWEB are all cheaper when compared to their ADSL equivalents.
It must be noted that Telkom’s Unlimited Home packages, not included below, charge the same price for ADSL and fibre packages – with its ADSL packages including ADSL line rental and landline rental fees.
FIBRE VS ADSL PRICES
REGISTER INTEREST
Phase 1: Old Village
CONTACT STRANDFONTEIN FIBRE INITIATIVE
Strandfontein, Cape Town, 7788, South Africa
