Telkom South Africa’s Openserve wholesale unit has informed its ISP partners of its plan to cease offering copper-based services from next month. As part of the notice, Openserve said it reserves the right to cease any or all Resell DSLand Openserve Copper Connect (OCC) services that are within its fibre footprint from 1 October 2021. Local tech site MyBroadband quotes a company spokesperson as saying: ‘As a courtesy, Openserve will endeavour to inform end-users of our intention to switch their service from copper to fibre and to contact their licensed operator immediately.’
The report notes that back in May 2019 Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko said the telco planned to stop providing copper-based services by 2024. Openserve initially planned to disconnect ADSLand copper customers in areas where it had fibre from 1 September 2020, only for COVID-19 to derail its plans.
Openserve, which bills itself as ‘South Africa’s largest broadband infrastructure wholesale provider’, presides over a network that passes 2.4 million premises.
– Commsupdate