South African company fibertime, which says its aim is to connect townships to affordable world-class internet, is working with tech giant Nokia on expanding its fibre broadband access footprint to include an additional 400,000 homes located across South Africa’s underserved communities.
The company says it will deploy a combination of Nokia’s IP and fibre access technologies to build semi-mobile networks in underserved areas, providing end users with unlimited high-speed internet from anywhere in their home or business or the community they live in.
Under the agreement, fibertime will deploy Nokia’s Lightspan access nodes and Wi-Fi 6-enabled fibre access points, using Nokia’s optical network termination (ONT) Easy Start to automate and simplify the fibre modem activation process and streamline deployments.
The company will also use Nokia’s 7750 Wireless Access Gateway to create a single service set identifier (SSID) on its network that allows customers to walk around their township and stay connected.
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.
The agreement to connect an additional 400,000 homes builds on a previous announcement between Nokia and fibertime to deploy FTTH networks across Cape Town, Johannesburg, Gqeberha, Mangaung and Stellenbosch. This latest broadband roll-out is part of fibertime’s larger goal of connecting two million homes by 2028.
Nokia solutions allow fibertime to provide affordable broadband access to millions of low-income customers, and are key to enabling fibertime flagship product: ZAR5 (about US$0.29) a day for uncapped, unthrottled internet.
Danvig De Bruyn, CEO, fibertime explains: “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 [a small unofficial store in a township], retail outlet or via their banking app, enter the voucher number in their fibertime app, and immediately have access to unlimited and unthrottled fibre-to-the-home internet at a cost of ZAR5 per day.”
He adds: “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.”
