The problem with fibre numbers in South Africa

While many of South Africa’s major fibre network operators (FNOs) use only actively subscribed customers for their “homes connected” figures, the country’s two biggest operators use a different method.

When it comes to reporting on their fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network sizes, FNOs use two main performance measures — “homes passed” and “homes connected”.

A connectivity ratio shows what portion of the homes passed are also connected to a particular network.

The problem with using these measures is that there is no industry standard definition for how they are determined in South Africa.

We asked seven of South Africa’s biggest FNOs how they came up with the numbers reported under their homes passed and connected figures to see if there were any preferred methods or similarities between the operators’ approaches.

General agreement over homes passed

Homes passed typically refers to the number of homes with access to a particular network, including those not connected to it.

Based on responses from the country’s biggest FNOs, there appeared to be general consensus that only homes that can place an order for FTTH on that network through an Internet service provider (ISP) should be counted.

Vumatel chief operations officer Dewald Booysen said they generally counted single and multi-dwelling homes where its fibre network passed outside of the premises as would be shown on its coverage maps.

By homes passed and homes connected, Vumatel is South Africa’s biggest home fibre provider.

“Some of these homes may not yet be connected with an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) device installed in the home if the homeowner has not yet placed an order, although in some cases we proactively build fibre up to the boundary of the premises to enable the quick connection,” Booysen said.

“By this definition, the homes included would have access to fibre, unless there are exceptional circumstances.”

Booysen said there could be some variance between operators in their calculations of homes passed in terms of the proximity that defines a home as “connectable”.

South Africa’s second-biggest operator — Openserve — told MyBroadband that it used FTTH Council in Europe’s definition for homes passed.

The entity considers this to be the number of premises that an operator can connect to an FTTH network in a service area.

MetroFibre’s definition for homes passed was “live fibre infrastructure that passes a single dwelling home or multi-dwelling environment”.

“We only count homes that we can deliver services to if an order is received from an ISP,” MetroFibre said.

Frogfoot Networks chief product officer David Coleman said the operator’s homes passed number referred to those that had fibre coverage on their network.

Herotel said it used data from land information system Cadastre to count the number of “erfs” with coverage, which serves as the basis for planning its fibre network.

“Once constructed, we conduct a manual count and verify it against our Cadastre data and plan to sign a final acceptance certificate for each home passed,”

“This approach ensures the highest level of accuracy possible,” said Herotel.

Zoom Fibre also has a stringent definition for homes passed. It counts only those households with a drop tube, the endpoint awaiting connection to an Optical Network Terminal (ONT), installed at the boundary wall of the residence.

Homes connected — In-home infrastructure vs subscribers

When it comes to the homes connected metric, Vumatel and Openserve count the number of homes with connected infrastructure, not those with an active subscription at the time of the report.

“As one might expect, homes are often bought and sold. This means numbers would fluctuate as subscribers disconnect and reconnect,” Vumatel’s Booysen explained.

“This could also be affected by suspensions and terminations — hence it wouldn’t be an insightful metric in this context.”

As it does with homes passed, Openserve aligns its definition of connected homes with that of the FTTH Council.

That definition considers homes connected as the number of premises connected to an FTTH network and are already subscribers or those that can be turned into subscribers without further installation work.

The latter means that even those who might not be active subscribers but have an ONT in their homes would be counted, similar to Vumatel’s approach.

At least five other major FNOs —  Frogfoot, Herotel, MetroFibre, Octotel, and Zoom Fibre — don’t regard Vumatel and Openserve’s methods to be the correct approach.

Instead, they only count households with active subscriptions as being connected homes.

“Having a termination point in the home is not considered a connected house,” MetroFibre said. “A house is not ‘connected’ until it’s live and active with a subscription.”

Octotel chief operating officer Scott Cunningham even went so far as to say that including pending orders in the homes connected tally would be misleading.

Herotel said it counted active subscribers — those with a monthly recurring account connected to the network with drop infrastructure.

“Additionally, a prepaid user is counted if they are connected to the network with drop infrastructure and had at least one active radius session in the previous 30 days.”

“Prepaid users with no active radius session in the previous 30 days are classified as dormant.”

Support for industry-standard definitions

The result of these different reporting standards is that Vumatel and Openserve might appear to have a more substantial advantage in customer numbers than they truly have.

Most of the FNOs expressed explicit support for industry standards to establish clear definitions for these metrics.

Zoom Fibre said this would ensure consistency and transparency across the fibre optic network industry.

An annual report compiled by Africa Analysis already defines the metrics as most operators interpret them.

Frogfoot’s Coleman said that standards were usually a first step required for comparison, but there was already a common understanding of the differences between the terms.

“These terms are usually also clearly defined in contracts governing services where nuances can be addressed,” said Coleman.

The table below summarises the different definitions FNOs use for the homes passed and homes connected metrics.