Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) is set to acquire South Africa-based CONDUCT as it looks to overcome the last mile barrier and provide South African enterprises with easy access to fibre connectivity.
Last mile fibre solutions provider CONDUCT offers an open access network to service providers, allowing them to deliver high speed voice, video and data solutions.
DFA expects the acquisition to be completed by the end of March, pending the necessary approvals.
“The CONDUCT acquisition gives us an overnight presence as a last mile provider and, importantly, puts into motion our strategy to connect as many customers to our fibre network as possible in a cost effective way,” said Reshaad Sha, chief strategy officer at DFA.
Sha said DFA has identified an unmet need in the market for cost-effective fibre connectivity to enterprise customers, though the cost of building out the last mile from an existing network has so far been a barrier to many businesses.
“Our customers, being internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms operators, therefore require an underlying solution that accelerates business connectivity more economically. DFA has focused its efforts on building a product set to lower or remove, this barrier to entry,” Sha said.
Johan Pretorius, chief executive officer (CEO) at CONDUCT, said: “CONDUCT’s last-mile network enables enterprises to get access to fibre very rapidly. Combining this last mile infrastructure with DFA’s metro network provides ISPs instant access to new customers whilst businesses benefit from fibre. Suddenly there are fast, reliable, competitive services at their fingertips.”
DFA said its last mile strategy will be “significantly enhanced” with the acquisition, allowing it to speed up the delivery of last mile fibre connectivity to its customers. The company, through its ISP partner network, aims to connect up to 10,000 business customers to its fibre network by March 2015.
DFA will make all the capital investments required to build out this last mile fibre network where it currently has a metro network presence across South Africa.
