FTTx presents opportunities for consumers, business

7th September 2021

By: Natasha Odendaal

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

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Fibre-to-the-x (FTTx) is a bundle of opportunities wrapped in legacy challenges that can be overcome to deliver immense value to the business, consumer and public sector alike, said International Data Corporation senior research and consulting manager and telco and Internet of Things sub-Saharan Africa lead Keoikantse Marungwana.

Both locally and abroad, FTTx deployments have seen significant demand, driven by shifting business, education, government and healthcare needs.

Globally, consumers and corporates have shown a clear appetite for connected and smart homes and buildings, from automation to video surveillance to work-from-home systems, and this is showing little sign of abating, presenting an opportunity for businesses to fully realise the potential of FTTx.

“Organisations that adopt this technology can fully realise their digitalisation needs through a stable, high-speed and low-latency connection. They can develop their cloud strategies and accelerate cloud adoption and leverage the potential of the hybrid or work-from-home models,” said Marungwana.

FTTx removes the need for large office spaces and enables remote working and learning, creating new opportunities in office space optimisation and reduced office leasing costs.

Industry sectors and verticals can accelerate their SmartX strategies across metering, buildings and assets, pulling on the innovative deployment models that evolve out of FTTx and WiFi 6, besides others.

“The country is in desperate need of economic recovery and broadband technology developments are the fuel that can drive all facets of society out of these complex times,” he added.

Connecting clinics and hospitals can improve access to healthcare through medical supplies logistics, maintenance operations, infrastructure monitoring and digitalisation, while, in education, online teaching has undergone a significant acceleration owing to increased broadband and fibre rollouts with institutions adopting the new normal and developing solutions designed specifically for the market.

For the consumer, fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) could enable access to next-generation telemedicine and kickstart the local evolution of smart homes.

However, there are challenges to FTTx deployment, particularly as competing mobile broadband offers continue to pull customers away from fixed home broadband and for many customers, they do not have the budget for both mobile broadband and FTTH.

“Fibre deployment costs have been coming down steadily, but not at a rate to sufficiently accelerate the return on investment for deployments in low-density areas. The impact of the pandemic on supply chains also contributed to project cost overruns and put additional pressure on the fibre roll-out strategies of various players,” explained Marungwana.

This is further impacted by slow wayleave approvals for trenching and excavations for installation of underground fibre and for the installation of poles for overhead fibre deployments.

“The situation has played out the irresistible force paradox, with the unstoppable force of the fibre market growth fighting against the immovable object of council approvals for wayleaves. Another challenge is that infrastructure sharing among service providers is not actively pursued by many of the players in the ecosystem as some view their infrastructure as a long-term competitive advantage and only share it on an ad hoc or reactive basis,” he continued.

Another layer of complexity for FTTx deployment for all stakeholders is connecting rural areas with their sparse landscapes, with return-on-investment and payback periods in rural markets more difficult when compared with high-density urban and peri-urban areas.

“To overcome these challenges and realise these opportunities, pureplay fibre operators will need to develop compelling value propositions to gain market share against mobile broadband, and broadplay operators will need clever marketing and positioning strategies to package their fibre and mobile broadband offerings.

“In addition, improved coordination between fibre players and government initiatives can help solve the rural connectivity challenge, providing a competitive advantage in the connectivity starved rural market," he concluded, noting that fibre operators should consider incorporating infrastructure sharing as a key strategic enabler for market expansion and consider scheduling their wayleave applications way in advance to mitigate slow turnaround times from council.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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