Fibertime Group Proprietary Limited
Region and country of operations: Africa, South Africa
Jurisdiction of registration: South Africa
Business sector: Telecommunication
Date of agreement (month/year): 11/2023
Instrument: Equity
Finnfund’s financing: EUR 2,000,000
Share of Finnfund’s financing: 18%
Size of project/financing: 11,200,00
Environmental and social category: B
Project description
Approximately 14 million (80% of the total) homes in South Africa remain unserved by fast and affordable internet. The traditional post-paid suburban FTTH (Fiber-to-the-home) model targets high LSM (Living Standards Measure) customers with long-term fixed contracts to guarantee revenue. This results in a high-cost post-paid model wholly unsuitable for township fibre, perpetuating South Africa’s digital inequality. The problem with micropayments is that they cannot feasibly be processed by credit card companies using traditional transaction fee-based systems.
Fibertime Group is the parent company of Fibertime and Vulacoin. Fibertime provides a pay-as-you-go model of affordable and uncapped time-based open-access aerial fibre internet. Vulacoin provides a gateway for internet services providers to initiate micro digital payments at low costs for users to purchase internet and offer additional services through digital means.
With Finnfund ‘s investment, Fibertime Group will expand their operations into new townships in South Africa and software developmentn.
Main development impact
Prepaid fibre connection enables cheaper, faster, and more reliable internet connection. The most significant impacts of having access are for households:
1) keeping up to date with social media;
2) finding a job;
3) news;
4) less travel; and
5) work productivity.
For businesses, the top impacts include:
1) increased sales;
2) advertising in social media;
3) building relations with employees;
4) safer as less cash; and
5) relations with suppliers.
More information
Zuks Xegwana, Local Community Officer in Kayamandi