Nokia and fibertime accelerate roll-out of fiber broadband access to underserved townships across South Africa

Press Release
Nokia and fibertime accelerate roll-out of fiber broadband access to underserved townships across South Africa

• Nokia fiber access and IP solutions help fibertime connect 400,000 homes in underserved townships and communities to high-speed broadband access.
• Nokia solutions allow fibertime to provide affordable broadband access to millions of low-income customers, many connecting for the very first time.
• Nokia’s technologies are key to enabling fibertime flagship product: 5 Rand a day for uncapped, unthrottled internet.

6 October 2025
Espoo, Finland – Nokia today announced that fibertime is expanding its fiber broadband access footprint to include an additional 400,000 homes located across South Africa’s underserved communities. The broadband roll-out is part of fibertime’s larger goal of connecting 2 million homes by 2028. Fibertime will deploy a combination of Nokia’s IP and fiber access technologies to build semi-mobile networks in underserved areas, providing end-users with unlimited high-speed internet from anywhere in their home, business or community they live in.
Under the agreement, fibertime will deploy Nokia’s Lightspan access nodes and Wi-Fi 6 enabled fiber access points, using Nokia’s ONT Easy Start to automate and simplify the fiber modem activation process and streamline deployments. Fibertime will also use Nokia’s 7750 Wireless Access Gateway, to create a single SSID on their network that allows customers to walk around the township and stay connected.

“With Nokia’s support, we’re able to significantly ramp up the roll-out of our low-cost, high-speed, fiber internet service to underserved township communities across South Africa.   We’re now connecting 1,200 households a day to flexible, high-speed access - up to 950Mbps in some cases – without the need for contracts or debit orders. Once a township is connected, customers simply buy vouchers at a local spaza, retail outlet or via their banking app, enter the voucher number in their fibertime app, and immediately have access to unlimited and unthrottled fiber-to-the-home internet at a cost of R5 per day,” said Danvig De Bruyn, CEO, fibertime.  

To help further drive automation and scale across its network, fibertime will also deploy Nokia’s Altiplano and Network Services Platform solutions along with its Altiplano Fiber Health Analyzer which can detect network anomalies and identify potential issues before they escalate.

“Nokia’s automation and AI-powered tools not only help us to improve operational efficiencies but also enhance the reliability of our FTTH network. We can now detect disruptions earlier and resolve incidents more quickly to ultimately improve the subscriber experience,” said Danvig De Bruyn, CEO, fibertime.

“Reliable broadband is critical for thriving communities—powering education, healthcare, and local economies. Yet too many people remain unconnected because of the unique challenges tied to where they live. With our fiber and IP solutions, we’re changing that, bringing broadband services to thousands of customers at once, in regions once considered too difficult to serve,” said Sandy Motley, President, Fixed Networks, Nokia.  

The agreement to connect an additional 400,000 homes builds on a previous announcement between Nokia and fibertime™ to deploy FTTH networks across Cape Town, Johannesburg, Gqeberha, Mangaung and Stellenbosch.  

Multimedia, technical information and related news 
Product Page: Nokia LIghtspan platform
Web Page: Nokia Wi-Fi solutions
Product Page: Nokia Multi-Access Gateway

About Nokia
At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together. 

As a B2B technology innovation leader, we are pioneering networks that sense, think and act by leveraging our work across mobile, fixed and cloud networks. In addition, we create value with intellectual property and long-term research, led by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs, which is celebrating 100 years of innovation. 

With truly open architectures that seamlessly integrate into any ecosystem, our high-performance networks create new opportunities for monetization and scale. Service providers, enterprises and partners worldwide trust Nokia to deliver secure, reliable and sustainable networks today – and work with us to create the digital services and applications of the future.

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