Violence in large township frustrates Vumatel rollout

Crime and violence over the past few weeks have derailed some of fibre network operator (FNO) Vumatel’s network rollout and maintenance plans in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape.

MyBroadband has been monitoring Afrihost’s network status page for a while after noticing this particular issue had remained on the website for a prolonged period.

Typically, FNO outages shared by the ISP with its customers will be around for a few hours, days, or weeks at a maximum, before being resolved.

However, a notification from the country’s biggest fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) provider regarding disruptions to its services in Khayelitsha first posted on 12 December 2023 had remained on the website until at least Tuesday, 26 March 2024, suggesting the problems had no quick fix.

It read as follows:

Vumatel installation and maintenance problems | Khayelitsha

We would like to inform you about the challenges that we are currently experiencing with installation & maintenance activities in the Khayelitsha, Western Cape. Due to increased violence in this area, our contractor partners are not able to freely access the area to work. All maintenance and installation activities in this area will be on hold until further notice. The safety of our contractor partners remains our priority.

Khayelitsha is one of the areas where Vumatel has rolled out its more affordable Vuma Reach product, offering 20Mbps FTTH packages for less than R400 per month.

MyBroadband contacted Vumatel to learn more about the issues being experienced in the township.

Dewald Booysen, chief operations officer at Vumatel holding company Maziv, said the FNO was prioritising the safety of its staff and contractors while also protecting assets — including equipment and its network.

“Additionally, we must consider the safety of the community, which suffers the indirect effects of crime and violence,” Booysen stated.

Booysen said it was difficult to gauge exactly how many customers were impacted by the problems at this stage. However, new customers awaiting connection and existing customers who have reported faults and are waiting for maintenance to attend would be affected.

He added that it might have repercussions on surrounding areas, as the infrastructure passing through the affected location often served other communities.

Booysen said crime and violence had become an increasing challenge in certain areas, particularly underserved regions facing general service delivery issues, resulting in frustration among the communities.

“We view this as part of a broader challenge to enhance infrastructure and service delivery for underserved communities,” Booysen said.

Vumatel is not the first to encounter these types of problems in lower-income areas. FNOs have also previously told MyBroadband they encountered construction mafias demanding contract work be doled out to particular individuals.

However, the company’s strategy in recent years has been more keenly focused on targeting customers in underserved areas than its rivals.

Its homes passed on its lower-income Reach product passed the regular Vuma Core offering for more affluent areas in 2023.

Vuma recently also showcased an even lower-cost product called Vuma Key. It is aimed at areas where the average household income is below R5,000 per month and where there are large concentrations of multi-dwelling properties.

Collaboration rather than confrontation

Booysen explained that Vumatel would not use a hard-handed approach to deal with the issues in Khayelitsha.

“While we sometimes engage additional security, there is no guarantee of its effectiveness, and it may exacerbate the situation, putting both our staff and the community in greater danger,” he said.

“We maintain ongoing dialogue with leaders in Khayelitsha and other communities to ensure that we collaborate effectively with them and prioritise the safety of our teams and the community.”

“Once we have received the necessary assurances, we deploy our teams, sometimes accompanied by additional security escorts, to carry out the required work.”

Booysen said Vumatel was still generally able to maintain services on its impacted network.