Fibre network operators, as rated by South Africa’s ISPs

September 5, 2023 Siyabonga Mtangana

The Internet Service Providers’ Association (Ispa) has conducted a survey in which it asked its members to rate fibre network operators (FNOs) based on prior experiences.

The ISPs polled were asked to rate the FNOs on 10 metrics, including value for money, communication, support and friendliness. ISPs work closely with FNOs to provide fixed broadband services into homes and businesses.

“Ispa members were asked to rate FNOs on a number of characteristics. They could score each item from 0-10, or mark not applicable. The total number of respondents was 48, but not all ISPs rated all FNOs. Members were asked to rate only the FNOs they had some experience with,” the association said.

Here’s how the FNOs scored:

Openserve topped the rankings with a score of 7.0;
MetroFibre and Octotel following closely behind, tied with 6.8 points each;
Openserve ranked highest in value for money (7.1), reliability (8.4), technical proficiency (7.4), optimism about the future (6.9) and likelihood of recommending the network to other ISPs (7.3);
MetroFibre took the honours for friendliness of staff (7.4) and the quality of its business processes (7.2); and
Octotel topped the list for support (7.3) and software systems (7.4).

Fibre network operators

“Overall, ISPs rated the technical proficiency, reliability and staff of FNOs the highest, while poor support and communications tended to drag down the scores,” Ispa said.

“FNOs rated by fewer ISPs generally scored lower overall scores, but Link Layer (6.1) and TT Connect (6.0) both fared well overall and were rated by more than five ISPs.