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Fibre a key aspect of Telkom’s turnaround

Fibre a key aspect of Telkom’s turnaround

Photo by Duane Daws

2nd September 2014

By: Natasha Odendaal

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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Fibre has emerged as a key aspect of telecommunications group Telkom’s turnaround and its ambitions of becoming “a clear broadband leader”.

Speaking at the Southern Africa Telecommunications Networks and Applications Conference, in Port Elizabeth, on Tuesday, Telkom COO Dr Brian Armstrong explained that the company’s broadband strategy was not a one-size-fits-all, but that the deployment of fibre would assist in future-proofing capabilities.

“Fibre-based access is the next phase of telecommunication evolution,” he assserted, pointing out that fibre would be prevalent in 20 years.

Its broadband strategy would see Telkom deploy a targeted technology spread of mostly very high bit rate digital subscriber line, or VDSL, fibre and fibre-to-the-home (FTTH), with long-term evolution and asymmetric digital subscriber line, or ADSL, comprising 30% and 10% respectively in the long-term.

Telkom, which had more than 147 000 km of fibre and 16 588 fibre distribution points enabling more than 100 000 services, aimed to light up its 20-suburb FTTH project, which was implemented in June.

The group’s FTTH connectivity project, which aimed to enable guaranteed speeds of 100 Mb/s on the network, had passed nearly 2 000 of the targeted 25 000 homes.

The 20-suburb roll-out was only the first phase, allowing the group to study the uptake and demand for FTTH.

Meanwhile, Armstrong noted that Telkom’s turnaround was not only about innovation, but a return to the basics.

“We do not need to reinvent growth, we just need to execute the basics,” he said, pointing out the importance of breaking from the past, being noticed and being different.

Telkom’s turnaround also rested on its ability to provide “superb” customer experience, deliver broadband products that meet customers’ needs wherever they were, ensure a great Internet service provider platform, establish compelling content and value-added services and reviving the Telkom brand.

It was necessary for the group to get the content and value-added services right as broadband provision and content offering were increasingly colliding.

Further, the company had, over the past six months, focused on a programme of work addressing the critical issues customers had indicated needed to be fixed.

“We went off the boil on customer service,” Armstrong said.

However, the company was bouncing back, with Telkom “really working on this.”

Over the next two to three years, Telkom aimed to embed the new customer service vision within the group.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

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