Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko recently said the company wants to service one million FTTH-connected homes within the next three years.

Speaking at Satnac 2015, Maseko said Telkom will double its investment in FTTH and fibre-to-the-business to achieve these targets.

Telkom currently has 38,000 homes connected to its FTTH network, and plans to grow this number to 70,000 by the end of 2015.

Maseko said that by March 2016, they plan to serve 150,000 homes with fibre – expanding to 400,000 homes in 2017.

Maseko said Telkom is committed to democratising broadband access. “We have set ourselves the objective of contributing to transforming the South African economy”.

While Telkom’s fibre roll-out for large metropolitan areas will continue, the company is working with the government to provide broadband to under-serviced areas.

Very ambitious target

To put Telkom’s one-million FTTH target into perspective, it took the company 13 years to reach the same milestone with its ADSL service.

There is one big difference, though. The ADSL infrastructure – copper lines – already existed and were already installed in people’s homes.

Telkom’s new fibre-to-the-home infrastructure is still being rolled out. This includes both last mile and other network components.

The graph below shows the growth of ADSL in South Africa, and Telkom’s new fibre-to-the-home target.