Parkview and Greenside East have followed in the footsteps of their neighbour Parkhurst to take charge of their own broadband access ambitions and called on companies to table their fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) proposals.

Service providers have until September 26 to submit their plans to build and manage the proposed high-speed network in the affluent suburbs housing about 1 100 stands.

The Parkview Residents Association (PRA), which issued the request for proposal on Friday, would review the submissions later this month.

"We are encouraged by recent developments in Parkhurst, with Vumatel beginning to trench for a new service there, and also by announcements by Telkom, Vodacom and MTN signalling their intentions to make FTTH available in Johannesburg,” said PRA chairperson Steve Lenehan.

In May, the Parkhurst Residents and Business Owners Association (Praboa) issued and awarded a tender for the roll-out of an extensive FTTH network, with a closed-circuit television (CCTV) system linked to the fibre network.

To bring down the cost of connecting the backbone infrastructure to 2 100 homes, Praboa had approached the City of Johannesburg for the use of its infrastructure, including street poles, for the CCTV and FTTH initiatives.

PRA said it would be open to various business models, including a build-transfer-own, where the contractor would establish and manage the infrastructure and service under a service level agreement, relinquishing ownership to the PRA or a special-purpose vehicle.

PRA would also consider the possibility of entering a single contract service, contracting the broadband services on behalf of the residents.

A multiple client service model would also be considered, the association stated. In this case, the supplier would contract directly with the residents, as long as the association approved the company, contract, long-term service level and pricing commitments.

Companies were invited to submit proposals after a survey of 632 respondents in August revealed “very strong demand” for a new fast broadband service.

Four out of five households currently with a home Internet connection – mostly assymetric digital subscriber line, or ADSL, connections – would consider switching to a new fast broadband service that was vetted and endorsed by the PRA, with 90% of respondents without a home Internet connection stating that they would consider a fibre connection.

The survey showed that 31% of those connected used between 1 GB and 5 GB of data a month, while 29% and 16% of the respondents indicated that 10 GB to 20 GB and 20 GB to 50 GB of data was used each month respectively.

One in eight of the households surveyed used more than 50 GB of data a month.

Just under a third of the residents surveyed paid between R300 and R499 a month for Internet access and use. About 37% parted with R500 to R799 and 22% paid over R800 a month.

PRA stated that more than three-quarters of respondents indicated a willingness to pay between R700 and R900 a month for speeds of 50 Mb/s to 100 Mb/s, inclusive of data and Internet service provider (ISPs) costs.

One in eight would pay R900 a month for a 100 Mb/s connection with 100 GB data, inclusive of line and ISP costs.