Bradley Prior 22 August 2020
Telkom has lost a case against Vodacom in the Pretoria High Court over the latter’s use of Telkom’s ducts and sleeves to roll out its fibre network.
This outcome is great news for South African customers, who could see fewer obstacles impeding their preferred fibre network from installing infrastructure in their area.
In 2015, the Homeowners’ Associations of 15 private residential estates in the Western Cape invited Vodacom to install fibre in their complexes.
However, Telkom already had underground ducts in these estates that had been used for the rollout of telephone and ADSL lines.
Vodacom asked Telkom to allow it to install fibre in its ducts in the estate, but Telkom declined, claiming it was not obliged to share its infrastructure.
Vodacom installed fibre in these ducts anyway, leading to a conflict that reached the courtroom.