Openserve, the wholesale and networks division of Telkom, has launched a new symmetric 100Mbps fibre to the home (FTTH) services and upgraded its 200Mbps product to 250Mbps. Until now the 100Mbps line could only handle uploads of 50Mbps, as the service lagged behind competitors. Now it will run uploads up to the same speed as the downloads.
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This has led to some changes in pricing at the various internet service providers. Cool Ideas and Afrihost customers that were running on Openserve lines will have their services upgraded automatically.
| Openserve package | Cool Ideas | Afrihost |
| Openserve 25/10Mbps | R549 | R497 |
| Openserve 25/25Mbps | R599 | R597 |
| Openserve 50/25Mbps | R749 | R697 |
| Openserve 50/50Mbps | R819 | R827 |
| Openserve 100/50Mbps | R949 | R947 |
| Openserve 100/100Mbps | R1,029 | R997 |
| Openserve 250/125Mbps | R1,199 | R1,167 |
| Openserve 500/250Mbps | R1,399 | R1,347 |
Fibre is seeing some fierce competition in the local market, as many customers are moving away from more expensive mobile data. Openserve has by far the most extensive fibre network in South Africa with over 160,000km of cable in the ground, but Vumatel’s 13,200km network reaches more homes. In March 2022, Openserve reached around 390,000 connections, while reaching 840,000 homes. Vumatel’s fibre network passed 1.5 million homes with 450,000 connections. Vumatel passed 400,000 additional homes in the last year alone.
