ISPA sees progress reflected in FNO perception survey

Fibre network operators are regarded as key contributors to narrowing SA’s deep digital divide.

South Africa’s fibre network operators (FNOs) are steadily improving their rating levels among internet service providers (ISPs), which bodes well for internet industry services.

This is according to the Internet Service Providers’ Association of South Africa (ISPA), which yesterday released its bi-annual FNO perception survey.

The survey gauges South African ISPs’ opinions of their fibre network operator business partners, with 46 ISPs participating in the February poll.

ISPA members were asked to rate FNOs on a number of characteristics. They could score each item from 0-10, or mark not applicable. Not all ISPs rated all FNOs. Members were asked to rate only the FNOs they had some experience with.

The eight most-rated operators have consistently been rated by the most ISPs in the perception surveys, according to the internet industry representative body.

According to the survey, Octotel, Openserve and MetroFibre lead as the top three highest-rated providers, for the period under review.

Octotel’s overall rating improved to 7.4 (from 7.1), Openserve improved to 6.7 (from 6.6) and MetroFibre strengthened to 6.7 (from 6.5), it states.

The other highly-ranked performers are Liquid Intelligent Technologies (6.1), Link Africa (6.1), Frogfoot (5.6), Dark Fibre Africa (4.9) and Vumatel (4.6). Liquid improved from 4.7 in August 2023, to 6.1 in February 2025.

“ISPs rating more FNOs bodes well for competition. Generally, each survey brings a slight improvement in ISP perceptions of FNOs over the previous six months, so we are making progress,” says Sasha Booth-Beharilal, ISPA chairperson.

ISPA indicates that ISPs rating more FNOs over time suggests ISPs are using more fibre operators to deliver more services compared to two years ago.

It also highlights that SA’s FNOs are critical to bridging the digital divide and therefore their performance across a range of metrics is of vital importance to the economy.

Data from market analyst firm BMIT indicates SA is increasingly witnessing a new crop of FNOs that are targeting the lower-income market,contributing to narrowing the digital divide.