Fixed-line operator Telkom plans to take its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connections to one-million homes by March 2018, CEO Sipho Maseko said on Monday.

Since announcing its FTTH ambitions to light up more than 20 suburbs in June 2014, Telkom had already connected 38 000 homes, with the fibre access expected to reach around 70 000 homes by December.

Addressing delegates at the eighteenth Southern Africa Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference, Maseko said the group’s FTTH connectivity project, which aimed to enable guaranteed speeds of 100 Mb/s on the network, would connect 500 000 homes by the end of 2016.

The 20-suburb roll-out was only the first phase, allowing the group to study the uptake and demand for FTTH.

This emerged as Gauteng’s affluent neighbourhoods continue to take their broadband requirements in their own hands by deploying their own fibre in an ever-increasing trend towards developing “fibrehoods”.

Maseko outlined in Telkom’s 2015 annual report that the “relentless pressure” from “far nimbler” smaller fibre providers “cherry-picking” the suburbs they wanted to service had weighed somewhat on the company’s wholesale and networks business during the financial year ended March 31.

“As the leading manager of a wide infrastructure network, Telkom’s response to this type of competition needs to be carefully thought through. Our approach is to evaluate each market and each exchange to ensure we have the right technological solution for a particular market,” he said at the time.

Vumatel had been deploying FTTH networks to residents of Victory Park, Linden, Bryanston South, Blairgowrie, Greenside, Parktown North, Killarney, Riviera, Saxonwold and Parkwood since Parkhurst started the trend in 2014.

Lonehill residents also joined the “fibrehood” trend, with telecommunications giant MTN deploying FTTH and fibre-to-the-business (FTTB).

In June, open access fibre infrastructure provider Dark Fibre Africa said it planned to expand its high-speed FTTB capabilities in major and secondary cities across South Africa, with an expected 20 000 business connections to be established by March 2016.