Richard Came, a former Dimension Data director, is to be appointed chairman of Conduct Telecommunications’ board in May following his acquisition of a 10 per cent shareholding in the company.
Came is described as a trendsetter and key player in South Africa’s fibre-optic industry and is also a shareholder in Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) and president of the Fibre To The Home (FTTH) Council.
Conduct Telecommunications is best described as a last-mile fibre optic telecommunications operator, which connects commercial facilities to dark fibre.
The company then provides fibre to third-party internet service providers (ISPs).
“There has been significant investment in both longhaul and metropolitan networks by the likes of DFA and other operators to support the needs of the mobile operators,” said Came.
“This has created a tremendous potential capacity for bandwidth, but the means for ordinary businesses and citizens to access this remains Limited.”
Came added he believes Conduct Telecommunications has the potential for “huge growth”.
Came says the reason for the accessibility of bandwidth being limited is largely due to cost, which is prohibitive.
He said: “Conduct is changing this. If we get it right, and it is a very real challenge for us still, Conduct will benefit not only the end user, but also the metro-networks as it drives utilisation of existing infrastructure.”
Johan Pretorius, chief executive officer of Conduct Telecommunications, said the company is currently in talks with investors and announcements will be made soon.
“We welcome Richard Came to our board, he has a tremendous track-record in this industry and has for a long time been a vocal advocate of the importance to fibre,” said Pretorius.
Pretorius added: “His experience and understanding of this marketplace is an invaluable asset to us. He will be instrumental in our efforts to fast track the roll-out of last mile fibre optics to key precincts in high density business areas.”
Pretorius said Conduct Telecommunications is an infrastructure provider with a focus on the last mile exclusively.
“We want to focus where the need is right now. The beauty of open access fibre is that any service provider can utilise our infrastructure. Therein lies the efficiency we need to bridge the last mile.”
