Dark Fibre Africa

Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) was established by Community Investment Ventures (CIV) and Venfin to build a carrier-neutral, dark fibre infrastructure for the transmission of metro and long-haul telecommunications traffic. Dark fibre is new to the South African market, which until 2006, had only one licensed provider of fixed line telecommunications services. With the advent of a deregulated telecommunications environment, new licensed operators began to commission their own network infrastructures. Since the routes on which these networks will be constructed are typically in centres with the highest commercial and population concentration there is a high level of overlap. In the construction of fibre optic transmission networks, civil engineering infrastructure and ducting account for 70 to 80% of total costs, but deliver no strategic advantage to the operator.