Price changes at major fibre network operator revealed

MetroFibre, one of South Africa’s biggest fibre network operators (FNOs), will increase wholesale fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) prices from 1 August 2025.

This comes after the FNO recently told MyBroadband that “reasonable” price adjustments would probably be implemented later in 2025.

While Internet service providers (ISPs) can set their own end-user prices, increasing wholesale prices often requires them to hike their fees to ensure cost recovery and a reasonable profit margin.

According to an ISP operating on MetroFibre’s network that wishes to remain anonymous, the FNO will increase its wholesale prices by between 5.5% and 13.3%.

This comes after several other major operators announced price hikes at the beginning of March.

These include Vumatel, whose prices increased by between 1.3% and 15.1%, and Openserve, which increased its prices by between 2.5% and 8.4%. These price hikes were implemented in April.

MetroFibre has the country’s fourth-largest fibre network and third-largest open access provider, with 510,000 homes passed as of December 2024.

It follows South Africa’s two dominant open access FNOs, Vumatel and Openserve, which cover roughly 3.3 million properties with FTTH, 1.6 million of which have a line active or ready to go live in their home.

The continued annual hikes in FTTH prices are noteworthy, considering fixed Internet prices are coming down globally.

According to Surfshark’s Digital Quality of Life Index, the time of work needed to afford a fixed broadband Internet package in 121 countries declined by 15% (53 minutes) in 2024 compared to 2023.

South Africa moved up nine positions in Internet affordability in the 2024 DQL Index, but most of this was because our mobile Internet is becoming cheaper.

In that category, the country jumped 19 positions from 63rd to 44th, with the time needed to afford mobile Internet plunging from an hour and 26 minutes to an hour and 5 minutes.

In fixed Internet, which includes FTTH, South Africa only climbed one spot, with the time of work needed to afford one of these plans at one hour and 34 minutes.

One development that has potentially contributed to overall fixed Internet affordability is the introduction and expansion of low-end fibre products like Vuma Key, priced from R99 per month.

The table below summarises MetroFibre’s price hikes for its Nexus and Nova networks, which will be implemented from 1 August 2025.