Four more Johannesburg suburbs can look forward to high-speed, fibre-to-the-home internet connectivity courtesy of Vumatel. Trenching to lay fibre will begin in Victory Park, Linden, Bryanston South and Blairgowrie in the last quarter of this year. Vumatel provides the physical infrastructure on an open-access basis, meaning consumers can choose from various internet service providers for data.

Vumatel already offers fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services in Parkhurst, Greenside and Parktown North with Killarney, Saxonwold and Parkwood expected to come online before the end of the year. All of which must be giving the execs at Telkom sleepless nights. It’s not just Vumatel offering FTTH services, but also Fibrehoods with its aerial-fibre offerings in Craighall and surrounds and Vodacom and MTN both ramping up their FTTH offerings.

“Together with the newly announced suburbs, this brings the tally to eleven confirmed ‘fibrehoods’ within the relatively short time since announcing the Parkhurst endorsement in July 2014,” Niel Schoeman, CEO of Vumatel says.

Aside from offering first-world download and upload speeds, Vumatel’s FTTH offerings have the benefit of being exempt from the so-called Telkom tax where DSL subscribers are forced to pay line rental for a telephone service they may never use, and month-to-month contracts make it easy to switch providers to take advantage of promotions or if service levels drop.

“The expanse of both our installed and planned network clearly reflects the demand for world class broadband connectivity,” Schoeman says. “We see an increasing number of suburbs pledging their support … and we look forward to bringing the benefits of fibre not only to the newly announced suburbs, but to all those that will be joining us on our journey in the near future.”

Consumers that want Vumatel to roll out fibre infrastructure in their neighbourhood are encouraged to register their interest on the company’s website.