by MTHULISI SIBANDA
JOHANNESBURG – OCTOTEL is South Africa’s best fibre network operator (FNO).
It is followed by Openserve and MetroFibre, according to the FNO Perception Survey by Internet Providers Association (ISPA), South Africa’s official internet Representative body.
Results are as of the end of February.
Octotel’s overall rating has improved to 7,4 (from 7,1), Openserve’s rating has improved to 6,7 (from 6,6) and MetroFibre’s rating has strengthened to 6,7 (from 6,5).
These results reflect the opinions of ISPs towards FNOs in February 2025.
FNOs are critical to bridging the digital divide and therefore how they are performing across a range of metrics important to the ISPs that actually interface with the end internet consumer is of vital importance to the economy.
The other top performers are Liquid Intelligent Technologies (6,1), Link Africa (6,1), Frogfoot (5,6), Dark Fibre Africa (4,9) and Vumatel (4,6).
Liquid, in particular, has improved markedly from 4,7 in August 2023 to 6.1 in February 2025.
ISPA has determined that ISPs are rating more FNOs over time, suggesting that ISPs are using more fibre operators to deliver more services compared to two years ago.
“ISPs rating more FNOs bodes well for competition,’ said Sasha Booth-Beharilal, ISPA chair.
“Generally, each survey brings a slight improvement in ISP perceptions of FNOs over the previous six months so we are definitely making progress.”
