Maziv, the fibre network operator in which Vodacom is buying a 30% co-controlling stake, wants to connect the more than 8 000 cellular base stations in South Africa that are not already connected to fibre infrastructure.
CEO Dietlof Mare told Digital Council Africa’s Conext Digital Infrastructure Investment Summit in Sandton on Thursday that Dark Fibre Africa, a Maziv subsidiary, is keen to engage with key role players in the industry, including the mobile network operators, in a project that would double the extent of DFA’s network and bring broadband infrastructure into outlying parts of the country not currently served with high-speed fibre links.
The idea, Mare said, is to remove the need for mobile network operators to rely on slower microwave backhaul links to connect remote towers into the country’s core telecommunications infrastructure.
“There are about 27 000 mobile sites in South Africa, and about 8 000 or 9 000 of these are still only connected via microwave,” Mare told the Conext audience.
“We have to get those sites connected to fibre. We can play a role in creating mechanisms to get to those sites, for all mobile network operators.”
He admitted, however, that it’s a challenge to get infrastructure into the most remote parts of the country and that “we haven’t got this solved yet”.
Read: Maziv says it’s ready to roll with new fibre builds
“But we have to connect these towers. That’s how DFA started. It started chasing towers – Vodacom’s towers in the beginning. This opened up metro fibre, and we could do different things. If you want to connect next 6 000 towers, we will have to build another 35 000km of fibre, which is double the size of DFA’s network today.” — © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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