by TINTSWALO BALOYI
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – VUMA, the leading South African Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) provider, is to offer households faster, higher capacity and more stable connectivity following a partnership with Huawei.
This will enable the former to meet growing consumer demand.
Vuma has announced the integration of next generation fibre technology and innovation to the South African market through its latest partnership with Huawei, announced at the recent Eco-Connect sub-Saharan Africa 2023.
The partnership sees the launch of 50G PON (passive optical network) capabilities – significantly higher than the existing 2.5Gbps capabilities currently in use.
Following its testing phase, the deployment of this first to market technology will make considerably higher upload and download fibre broadband speeds accessible to Vuma customers across the provider’s FTTH network.
As a next-generation PON technology defined by ITU-T, the 50G PON effectively supports 10Gbps everywhere.
It provides high-density symmetrical 50G PON to meet the increasing bandwidth requirements in future campus, industrial interconnection, enterprise and home scenarios.
“Vuma’s investment in the testing and rollout of the new Huawei PON technology is future-proofing our network, which will allow us to enable much more capacity over the last mile fibre and increase speeds as our customers require – approximately 20 times faster than the current capabilities deployed,” said Francois Swart, Chief Technology Officer at Vuma.
At the launch event, President of Huawei Optical Business Product Line, Richard Jin, outlined Huawei’s vision for Sub-Saharan Africa, assuring high-speed connectivity more accessible to the region.
“Fibre broadband will significantly promote innovation and employment for the country,” Jin said.
“However, the penetration rate of FBB (fixed broadband) in most of the African countries is much lower than the global average. This is both a challenge and an opportunity,” Jin added.
Kim Jin, Vice President of Huawei Optical Business Product Line, also spoke at the launch.
“We’ve launched the best technology currently available in the African market with our top customer, Vuma, which speaks volumes to the values of innovation and empowerment through connectivity that Huawei and Vuma share,” he said.
“Through this partnership, our goal, much like Vuma’s, is to support increased connectivity access to all South Africans, and to bridge the gap in access to high quality digital services,” Kim Jin concluded.
At early 2023, Vuma was serving over 1,6 million homes.
– CAJ News