Fibre to the home and fibre to the business (FTTH/FTTB) are continuing to make inroads into African markets, as indicated by recent announcements from operator Telekom Networks Malawi (TNM) and pan-African full service network company Paratus in Botswana.
Mobile network and ICT services provider TNM has unveiled a number of fibre packages in order, it says, to provide the fastest internet connectivity possible for medium-to-large-scale businesses.
Its fibre optic services are supplied in partnership with backbone company Open Connect Limited (OCL), which offers national and international wholesale capacity services to operators, ISPs, broadcasters and corporate customers.
The TNM fibre offering has two main options: FTTH, ranging from 5Mbps to 200 Mbps and FTTB, ranging from 20 Mbps to 200 Mbps.
In Gaborone, meanwhile, customers are being offered better, faster, and more reliable connections with the recently launched Paratus FTTH service. The company cites people working from home, students, young professionals, gamers, and multi-tasking families as potential beneficiaries of the service.
Paratus says it has created a highly competitively priced package for its FTTH service that is bundled with a sophisticated router, built to last and offers better Wi-Fi coverage throughout the home environment. Paratus says it provides a uniquely robust service in Botswana because of its redundant international backbone routes which reduce the risk of breaks in transmission.
Paratus boasts a pan-African network that has historically catered for enterprise customers. There are plans in place to deploy FTTH to consumers in other parts of Botswana at a later stage.
All of which, it could be argued, underlines the growth of fixed offerings in a continent that once seemed likely to be served almost entirely by near-ubiquitous mobile connectivity.
