Telkom to migrate customers from copper to fibre connections

Humanity has lived through many ages. We went through the Stone Age, Iron Age and while it may be way more recent than those other two eras, the Copper Age is coming to an end. Look, it’s not actually called The Copper Age (that was a while ago) but we’ve been living with internet pumped into our abodes by janky, unreliable and apparently valuable copper cables for years now.

Fibre-optic technology blew those cables out the water in recent years and as the infrastructure for fibre-based internet connections has spread across the country, copper has become obsolete. Hence, why Telkom is in the process of migrating customers to a much better internet connection.

The same, but different

Last week we reported that OpenServe was doing the same thing and while it initially seemed like a single company making the jump into the future, Telkom has clearly decided it’s time it did the same. Announced this morning, Telkom has confirmed that it is in the process of moving copper ADSL line users in fibre-ready areas to the more updated system. Telkom has assured customers affected by this migration that they will receive all the assistance and support the need to make the transition and painless as possible but given this is Telkom, one has to expect at least a little pain.

“With technology advancing so rapidly, we want to help keep our customers up to date and ensure that they are making the most of what’s available,” says Steven White, Executive: Product Development & Management at Telkom.

It’s a really good idea to migrate as soon as possible. Fibre connections are faster, more stable and far less valuable than copper, meaning cable theft is vastly reduced. If users aren’t stoked on fibre then they can always go the wireless LTE route but the speed and reliability of such a system…well, they’re nowhere near as sturdy as a tangible connection.

While the migration process will be free, users will still have to pay for their new internet package…which will probably be more expensive than ADSL considering how much faster fibre-optic connections are. So it’s definitely a case of Telkom essentially migrating everyone onto a more expensive payment plan…but at least you have an option of which package you want, right?