SA’s MetroFibre Networx and Steyn City Properties have collaborated to bring Fibre Connectivity to residents of Steyn City Parkland.
Connectivity Services is a joint venture between the parties, that will see ownership of the passive fibre infrastructure which resides with Steyn City Properties, while the operations, management, support and maintenance of the network will be performed by MetroFibre Networx.
Connectivity Services will provide an open access fibre communications network, offering residents and business within the development offerings of multiple service providers, dependent on the needs of the customer.
“Fibre is one of the fastest growing markets in the country and is becoming more and more pervasive in high density areas. It is also a firm favourite amongst developers who have a clean slate to work with, such as the team at Steyn City Properties,” said Gary Webster, head of sales at MetroFibre Networx.
“As per the agreement between Steyn City Properties and ourselves, we will be equal shareholders in Connectivity Services drawing from our collective expertise to deliver superior and reliable residential and business fibre communication services to the residents and future business tenants of the development,” said Webster.
The project rollout commenced on 1 December 2016. The backbone will be rolled out to all new and existing residents looking to take advantage of fibre directly to the home. In full development terms, Steyn City Lifestyle Resort is projected to comprise over 9000 households after a 10 to 15-year development period with 90% of these residential properties and 10% commercial.
MetroFibre will also provide backhaul connectivity to the network for ISPs, through its own fibre network which offers high speed (up to 10Gpbs) connectivity to all major Data Centres (Teraco, Hertzner, JINX, etc.) in Gauteng. This will enable the residents of Steyn City to make use of a service provider of their choice. Other backhaul connectivity providers shall also be able to service ISPs and Connectivity Services, via various infrastructure leasing and hosting options in the two Fibre Exchanges located within Steyn City.
“Our decision to partner with MetroFibre was based on its successful deployment of hundreds of kilometres of fibre throughout some of the most sought after suburbs in the north of Gauteng,” adds Carlo Cecchi, Head of IT and Technology at Steyn City Properties. “Additionally, the fact that they completely support open access to their infrastructure, while still being able to manage and maintain the network was also a big deciding factor in our partnership.”
MetroFibre Networx was recently rated in the MyBroadband’s latest broadband survey as the best-fixed broadband service in South Africa. The Q1 2017 broadband survey was completed by 2,463 South African broadband subscribers, who rated suppliers for the value for money, network quality, and billing and support of their broadband service.
Today, Metrofibre provides FTTH infrastructure to residents throughout Broadacres, Craighavon, Lonehill, Paulshof, Sunninghill, Barbeque Downs, Douglasdale, Magaliesig, the Kyalami area and Beaulieu to name a few.
