This came after the resident’s association announced that the suburb plans to install a Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network in its neighbourhood.
Subsequent to an almost unanimous vote at the association’s recent annual general meeting where more than 150 residents voted in favour of the initiative, service providers were invited to approach the association with viable proposals.
The adjudication committee reviewed 16 proposals from operators such as MTN, Vodacom, Telkom, Dark Fibre Africa, SA Digital Villages, ATEC, Liquid Telecoms, ClearlineIS, Posix and Cool Ideas.
Security providers Cortac and CSS also submitted proposals.
Resident and residents’ association technical advisor, Ryan Hawthorne said Vumatel was chosen because of their excellent technical proposal and a solid business plan that showed the project was financially viable and fully funded.
“Vumatel presented a comprehensive community communications plan, and commercial terms that were very favourable to the residents,” said Hawthorne,.
“Vumatel’s open access model really impressed us. By decoupling the line cost from the bandwidth cost, we’re ensuring that residents will have a wide choice of operators through which they can purchase bandwidth.”
The fibre optic cable roll-out is expected to take between 6-12 months. An information-sharing session with the community will take place within the next two weeks.
A new entrant to the FTTH market, Vumatel is headed up by Niel Schoeman a founder of Conduct Telecommunications SA, which has built over 40 last-mile fibre solutions for business precincts in South Africa and was recently sold to Dark Fibre Africa.
“We’re very pleased with the result of the process,” said Schoeman. “We’ve been assessing Parkhurst as a pilot project for over a year. With the community showing such great interest, we had no hesitation in bidding.”
Details: Cheryl Labuschagne 083 637 0394; cheryl@pathexecutive.com; Ryan Hawthorne (Technical) 083 445 2185; ryandavidhawthorne@gmail.com
Are you excited about this initiative?
Tell us by posting on our timeline, Rosebank Killarney Gazette or tweet us @RK_Gazette
Add us on BBM for the latest news in your community. PIN: 29C7976C
Click here to read more about Vumatel.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Parkhurst gets everyone’s attention
Parkhurst aims to be Joburg’s most-connected
