FibreCo to begin work on additional routes
FibreCo to begin work on additional routes
FibreCo, the fibre-optic telecommunications infrastructure provider co-owned by Dimension Data’s Internet Solutions, Cell C and Convergence Partners, will begin work on the next leg of its network in the next three months to link the coastal cities of East London, Cape Town and Durban.
The company, which has already begun trenching a route linking Gauteng and East London, is building an alternative and wholesale open-access fibre network that will compete with networks operated by companies such as Broadband Infraco and Telkom.
The next leg of the network will connect East London to Cape Town and East London to Durban. “The key one is the leg from East London to Cape Town because it’s longer and there are a number of sensitive areas along the route,” says FibreCo CEO Arif Hussain says.
Phase one of the project involves the Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban routes, connecting to submarine cable landing stations on the north coast of KwaZulu-Natal and on the west coast, north of Cape Town. “There will be a lot of rural areas in between that will be connected, which will help address the base level of demand we think needs to be there for this open-access infrastructure to be viable,” Hussain says.
The link between Gauteng and East London will pass through a number of smaller towns, including Reddersburg, Jamestown, Rouxville, Queenstown, Stutterheim, Aliwal North and Smithfield.