Neighbourhood fibre provider Vumatel is moving to offset its role in widening South Africa’s digital divide by seeking out and piloting a new viable model to drive down the cost of high-speed unlimited fibre access for those least able to afford it.

Vumatel emerged as a formidable fibre player in 2014 after being awarded the tender to install fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) in Parkhurst in what had been dubbed the first of South Africa’s “fibrehoods”.

However, while Vumatel had fed into demand and filled a consumer gap that had played a role in changing the landscape of fibre in South Africa, CEO Niel Schoeman believed the company had unwittingly exacerbated the digital divide by providing high-quality fibre access only to the suburbs.

Since 2014, several affluent suburbs had followed Parkhurst’s example of pursuing a neighbourhood-aligned fibre network that is fast and reliable.

However, South Africa’s townships lagged behind the curve as FTTH is too expensive for many.

“The only way to bridge the gap is to provide connectivity to everyone from Sandton to Soweto. Until then, we will leave people behind,” Schoeman told delegates at the MyBroadband Conference, in Midrand, on Thursday.

There is a need to develop a sustainable and viable business model in the midst of the exponential growth in technology that is providing “enormous” opportunity for millions of South Africans.

“We have to find a unique way to solve the challenge in this unequal society,” Schoeman said, pointing out that charities, corporate socioeconomic programmes and funds can only go so far before it becomes unsustainable.

To mitigate this, Vumatel plans to trial a new business model of affordable fast fibre deployed in the Gauteng township of Alexandra, which is directly opposite the connected Sandton.

Vumatel will deploy, by March, a fibre network offering unlimited access into the township at an offering of R89 a month.

Schoeman explained that community engagement revealed that the average income in Alexandra was about R2 500 a month per household, but over R100 was spent on prepaid mobile data every month.

“We are going to give this a shot to see if we can . . . make it work,” he said, adding that if the connectivity issues, including affordability and reliability, could be solved for Alexandra, then it could be solved for 35-million other South Africans.

Vumatel would “try to tackle this head on” to deliver information, education, entertainment and opportunity to the township at a low price point.