Introduction
Fibre is the fastest and most reliable connection we have in South Africa. It has the capacity to work at the speed of light and can achieve speeds of up to 200 Mbps. This review looks at top fibre service providers in South Africa.
What Is Fibre To The Business?
There are two types of fibre in South Africa, Fibre To The Home (FTTH) and Fibre To The Business (FTTB). FTTH is normally used in households and is cheaper than FTTB which is more expensive as it takes into consideration a business’s needs.
According to Accelerit, a fibre internet service provider, “FTTB has several advantages over FTTH, including wider coverage, better contention ratios, complex security, and clearly-defined service level agreements (SLA).”
The Benefits Of Fibre For SMEs
In an interview with SME South Africa, Rise in Fibre Adoption Among SMEs, Arthur Goldstuck, principal researcher for SME Survey and MD of World Wide Worx, notes that a key benefit of fibre for SMEs is that it enables SMEs to operate online without any of the performance and quality constraints they may have faced before.
This means that their communications are significantly improved, enabling businesses to utilise solutions like video-conferencing and social media platforms to further their business. It also enables businesses to use the Internet for transactional purposes, thanks to the quality and speed of the connectivity.
How to Get Fibre?
To get FTTB you need to have fibre infrastructure in the area that you operate in. Infrastructure providers do not offer any retail services to end users. Some of the biggest fibre infrastructures providers in South Africa are Vumatel and Openserve, however there are many more out there.
Check with the fibre infrastructure provider to find out if there is fibre available in your area. After which you would then choose an internet service provider (ISP) operating within that fibre infrastructure that fits your needs.
Unlike infrastructure providers, fibre service providers provide retail services for the end user. Well known examples include Telkom and Afrihost. Once you have signed up with an ISP, the fibre infrastructure provider will send someone to install fibre to your business. When the process is complete the ISP will send you a router and activate your account. This should take 3-5 operating days, depending on your area.