The rollout of new fibre connections has slowed to a crawl in South Africa — and the Competition Tribunal blocking investment into the sector hasn’t helped.
A specific recent example of a major fibre operator that has slashed its fibre rollouts is Telkom subsidiary Openserve.
In other words, Telkom will only roll out infrastructure where it can sign up sufficient customers to earn a return on its investment in a reasonable amount of time. It recommended to the Competition Tribunal that the deal be prohibited on the grounds that it would decrease competition in South Africa’s fibre market.
The chart below shows how Telkom’s fibre capex has fluctuated since 2016 and how it has declined since 2021, in particular.Telkom is not the only network operator pumping the brakes on new rollouts. Several South African network operators have reduced deployments for varying reasons.to inform their infrastructure investment strategy. Others are prioritising generating income from their assets to focus on paying down the huge debts they’ve incurred to build them.
Vodacom said its fibre network would immediately become open access to match Vumatel’s operating model. This cash injection could have gone towards reducing CIVH’s considerable debt, giving it headroom to continue its rapid fibre deployments.
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