SA's largest mobile company, Vodacom, is taking on its former parent, Telkom, as it launches an ADSL service into the corporate sector – with plans to eventually cut out Telkom's copper last mile.
The company could also try and usurp Telkom's dominant position in the residential market, but has yet to make an announcement as to whether it will launch fixed broadband to homeowners.
Vodacom's venture into fixed broadband could further unsettle Telkom, which has pinned some of its growth plans on launching a mobile offering sometime this year. Telkom has seen a steady decrease in the number of voice only fixed-lines, although its data penetration is growing.
Gary Hart, executive head of Managed Network Services at Vodacom Business, says the company will eventually be fighting Telkom for market share on Telkom's turf, but is currently reliant on the fixed-line operator for use of its last mile.
He explains that the offering will run on Telkom's copper access network for now, but will eventually move onto fibre, cutting Telkom out of the loop. Hart says, however, this will require economies of scale, which will be achieved as more fibre is rolled out to large corporations.
Vodacom has 11 metro Ethernet rings around the country, which it deployed for mobile backhaul. The company is now in the process of linking these rings to each other, and is using the infrastructure, which is already in the ground, to provide the ADSL backbone, explains Hart.
