MetroFibre, Steyn City in fibre joint venture
Steyn City Properties and MetroFibre Networx have entered a joint venture to bring fast fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connectivity to the residents.
Steyn City sits on the edge of Sandton in Johannesburg, connecting Fourways to Lanseria, Broadacres and Midrand.
Connectivity Services is a joint venture between the parties that will see ownership of the passive fibre infrastructure which resides with Steyn City Properties, while the operations, management, support and maintenance of the network will be performed by MetroFibre Networx.
As per the agreement, Connectivity Services will provide an open access fibre communications network, offering residents and business within the development offerings of multiple service providers, dependent on the needs of the customer.
“Fibre is one of the fastest growing markets in the country and is becoming more and more pervasive in high density areas. It is also a firm favourite among developers who have a clean slate to work with, such as the team at Steyn City Properties,” says Gary Webster, head of sales at MetroFibre Networx.
“As per the agreement between Steyn City Properties and ourselves, we will be equal shareholders in Connectivity Services drawing from our collective expertise to deliver superior and reliable residential and business fibre communication services to the residents and future business tenants of the development,” adds Webster.
The project rollout commenced on 1 December 2016. The backbone will be rolled out to all new and existing residents looking to take advantage of fibre directly to the home. In full development terms, Steyn City Lifestyle Resort is projected to comprise over 9 000 households after a 10 to 15-year development period with 90% of these residential properties and 10% commercial.
MetroFibre will also provide backhaul connectivity to the network for Internet service providers, through its own fibre network which offers high speed (up to 10Gpbs) connectivity to all major data centres, such as Teraco, Hertzner and JIN in Gauteng.
The company says this will enable the residents of Steyn City to make use of a service provider of their choice. Other backhaul connectivity providers shall also be able to service ISPs and Connectivity Services, via various infrastructure leasing and hosting options in the two fibre exchanges located within Steyn City.
“Our decision to partner with MetroFibre was based on its successful deployment of hundreds of kilometres of fibre throughout some of the most sought after suburbs in the north of Gauteng,” adds Carlo Cecchi, head of IT and technology at Steyn City Properties.
“Additionally, the fact that they completely support open access to their infrastructure, while still being able to manage and maintain the network was also a big deciding factor in our partnership.”
Today, MetroFibre provides FTTH infrastructure to residents throughout Broadacres, Craighavon, Lonehill, Paulshof, Sunninghill, Barbeque Downs, Douglasdale, Magaliesig, the Kyalami area and Beaulieu to name a few.
The company supports multiple service providers on its globally compliant Carrier Ethernet 2.0 open access fibre network and also pioneered the rollout of FTTH services in low density agricultural holdings areas, using aerial installations.