Fibre-to-the-home networks are being rolled out in most major cities in South Africa, and many residential users are now experiencing broadband speeds of up to 1Gbps.
Fibrehoods announced in September it was expanding its aerial fibre-to-the-home network to additional suburbs in Gauteng, including Beverly Gardens, Bryanston, and Kensington.
Metrofibre Networx has also announced the launch of new fibre-to-the-home services in Sunninghill and Barbeque Downs.
These areas complement numerous other neighbourhoods where FTTH is available from Telkom, Vumatel, Smart Village, MTN, and other providers.
Uncapped prices: Fibre versus ADSL
Many Internet Service Providers are offering uncapped services over these open-access fibre networks.
One of the advantages of fibre over ADSL access is that subscribers do not have to pay analogue line rental, which shows in the products’ pricing.
The table below details prominent uncapped FTTH and ADSL products, ranked by price.
| Uncapped broadband prices | ||||
| Company | Service | Access Speed | Data cap | Total monthly price |
| Vox Telecom | FTTH | 4Mbps | Uncapped | R499 |
| Smart Village | FTTH | 4Mbps | Uncapped | R584 |
| XDSL | FTTH | 4Mbps | Uncapped | R599 |
| MWEB | ADSL | 4Mbps | Uncapped | R638 |
| MWEB | FTTH | 4Mbps | Uncapped | R699 |
| Telkom | ADSL | 4Mbps | Uncapped | R774 |
| – | ||||
| Greencom | FTTH | 10Mbps | Uncapped | R684 |
| Smart Village | FTTH | 10Mbps | Uncapped | R899 |
| MWEB | ADSL | 10Mbps | Uncapped | R1,088 |
| Telkom | ADSL | 10Mbps | Uncapped | R1,188 |
| – | ||||
| Cool Ideas | FTTH | 20Mbps | Uncapped | R799 |
| XDSL | FTTH | 20Mbps | Uncapped | R799 |
| Smart Village | FTTH | 20Mbps | Uncapped | R1,223 |
| MWEB | VDSL | 20Mbps | Uncapped | R1,587 |
| Telkom | VDSL | 20Mbps | Uncapped | R1,787 |
| – | ||||
| Smart Village | FTTH | 40Mbps | Uncapped | R1,439 |
| MWEB | VDSL | 40Mbps | Uncapped | R2,487 |
| Telkom | VDSL | 40Mbps | Uncapped | R2,587 |
This article originally appeared on MyBroadband and is republished with permission.
In other broadband news
Cheapest ADSL prices currently available in SA
Has anyone noticed that on previous tables where they give the speeds of these lines, some companies differentiate between download and upload speeds? I thought fibre wasn’t supposed to be asymmetric… Apologies if this is just my ignorance talking but is this common practice (all over the world)??