Octotel’s Network Expansion

“From our humble beginnings constructing the Sea Point beachfront, Octotel has now passed over 125 000 homes, with over 32 000 connected customers. This makes Octotel the third largest open-access network in South Africa, a great achievement considering that we are the only FNO (Fibre Network Operator) based in and focusing on one city.
This did not happen over night, and there are many moving parts in the machine that has made this happen. I am often asked what makes Octotel different and it’s an easy question to answer.”

Rory van Zyl

Passionate Staff
In most cases, FNO’s outsource many facets of their business. Here at Octotel we in-source. Everything that touches our fibre we do ourselves. This allows us to build skills within the company and constantly improve our operations. Through in-sourcing, we’ve built a passionate workforce of 130 employees to manage the network and serve customers. The only facet of Octotel operations that is outsourced is the civils component.

Reliable and Honest Contractors
Our expanding network passes, on average, 4000 new homes each month. This velocity has allowed us to hand pick the best contractors for all of our civils work. Through a deep engagement with our civils contractors and teams, we work together to ensure the civils process of trenching past your home is as efficient and seamless as possible. Octotel is committed to Cape Town and here for the long term. This accountability goes a long way in forming a trushing and mutually beneficial relationship.

Systems Automation
Octotel has invested heavily in its software systems in order to plan, build and operate its fibre network to a very high standard. We have built industry leading systems that interface with our 50+ ISP partners to ensure that they get the best service from Octotel and can give you, the customer, an unrivaled fibre service.

Network Scale and Congruence
Octotel has built a large network that covers much of Cape Town. As our network has grown, we have been able to build redundant fibre backhaul routes that allow us to offer unrivaled network uptime and speed, as most of our backhaul is on our own Octotel dark fibre. We have now constructed long backhaul fibre to nodes as far as 27km away to ensure that these users can get the speed they require. This focus on the customer’s internet experience through and end to end approach sets Octotel apart.

2020 and beyond? We plan to grow faster and bring fibre to more communities. Each month over 2500 Capetonians order a new Octotel service and it is a thrill to bring them fast fibre internet! We believe fibre internet changes lives and has the power to be transformative, this is what drives us!