Communities across South Africa are increasingly insisting on open access fibre optic cable installations which provide a neutral platform for ISPs to compete with each other.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the word from South Africa\u2019s Internet Service Providers\u2019 Association (ISPA) which says elected representatives of gated communities, estates and business parks are gradually adopting a hard line with fibre providers some of whom still refuse to do business openly and transparently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a clear trend towards homeowners\u2019 associations, body corporates, residents\u2019 associations and property developers rejecting any potential fibre installation that does not allow for multiple Internet service providers to compete for owners\u2019 and tenants\u2019 business,\u201d said ISPA chairman Graham Beneke.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are doing this because they recognise that open access fibre networks provide the best of high-quality, affordable connectivity for consumers while increasing the value of property in the estate or community.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is imperative that communities choose open access providers and that clauses to this effect are always inserted in any written agreements with planned fibre providers.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsumers should be free to choose who they buy Internet access or data from and this is firmly in line with stated Government policy. In October 2016, Government outlined the right of consumers to choose their service provider as a key requirement of the National Integrated ICT Policy White Paper. It requires fair and sustainable service-based competition which will increase consumer choice (of service providers and of services), reduce costs and increase innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not all networks want to provide a platform for competition and do not want competition at the services level. ISPA\u2019s view is that this is not in the best interests of consumers and needs to be addressed to reduce the cost to communicate, poor service levels and a lack of innovation.<\/p>\n
It adds that vigorous competition in the services layer is imperative for increased innovation and value for money.<\/p>\n
\u201cNetwork deployment agreements that deny subscribers the choice of service provider represent a disservice to that community where the network is to be deployed and denies them their right of choice,\u201d said Beneke.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Communities across South Africa are increasingly insisting on open access fibre optic cable installations which provide a neutral platform for ISPs to compete with each other. That\u2019s the word from South Africa\u2019s Internet Service Providers\u2019 Association (ISPA) which says elected representatives of gated communities, estates and business parks are gradually adopting a hard line with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":21888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,275,399,38,19,382,262],"tags":[7369,7367,7368,6633,7370,453,1882],"class_list":["post-22617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cabling","category-intelligent-technology-newsletter","category-more-news","category-networking","category-regional-news","category-telecom","category-used","tag-graham-beneke","tag-internet-service-providers-association","tag-ispa","tag-isps","tag-national-integrated-ict-policy-white-paper","tag-south-africa","tag-southern-africa"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22617"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22685,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22617\/revisions\/22685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}