MetroFibre and Link Africa top fibre operator rankings, poll shows

MetroFibre and Link Africa are SA’s best-rated fibre network operators (FNOs), the Internet Service Providers’ Association (Ispa) says.

ISPs and fibre companies tend to have a symbiotic relationship. Vumatel and DFA specialise in providing open access fibre networks to ISPs. Service providers such as Cool Ideas, RocketNet and WebAfrica tend to not have their own fibre assets, relying on network operators such as Telkom’s Openserve, Vumatel or Vox’s Frogfoot to reach homes and businesses.

Ispa said ISPs’ confidence in their FNOs had slipped slightly since August, with the annual average of all operators dropping 0.2 points to 6.0.

This is according to the latest perception survey conducted by the body that seeks to measure the views of the internet industry association’s members on SA’s FNOs. About 50 ISPs participated in the February 2024 poll.

Members were asked to rate the fibre companies they do business with across 11 criteria, on a scale of 0 to 10. The previous survey took place in August 2023.

ISPs’ views of Link Africa and Liquid Intelligent Technologies have improved the most in the past six months. Opinions on Metrofibre and Octotel have remained positive, while the scores for Frogfoot, Openserve, Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa have dropped.

Fibre operators hoping to improve their scores should consider “streamlining the support they provide to ISPs making sure they have processes and staff capacity to resolve common issues, such as the difficulties consumers face when trying to migrate lines between ISPs”, Ispa says.

Feedback “unexpectedly” revealed the importance of fibre companies’ account managers. ISPs interacting with a good account manager tended to rate that FNO far more positively, while those with a less skilled account manager were much more critical towards that operator.

The two top-rated operators dominated the rankings for individual metrics, with MetroFibre scoring highest for technical proficiency (7.5), communications (6.9), friendliness of staff (7.9), business processes (7.4), software systems (6.9) and optimism (6.7). Link Africa did well in value for money (7.8) and open access principles (7.9).

Telkom’s Openserve was previously the top-rated operator but has slipped in the latest ratings overall, though it retained top spot for reliability (7.9). Western Cape operator Octotel remained the operator with the best support for ISPs with a score of 7.1.

The two networks that ISPs were most likely to recommend to other ISPs were MetroFibre and Liquid Intelligent Technologies, tied at 6.4.

The lowest-scoring criteria overall are: optimism about whether an operator will improve in the future (5.5), support provided to ISPs by operators (5.4), and the likelihood of recommending a particular operator to another ISP (5.3).

The association also noted high performance by small operators such as Evotel and Zoom Fibre. 

gavazam@businesslive.co.za