Dark Fibre Africa: Open-access fibre for South Africa

Dark Fibre Africa: Open-access fibre for South Africa is profiled by BTW Media because published evidence links it to internet infrastructure, governance, operational dependencies, or market visibility.

• Dark Fibre Africa runs about 14,000 km of open-access fibre and says it covers ~85% of key metros.
• Parent Maziv reports an R800m upgrade drive and improved delivery and repair times across the DFA network.

Dark Fibre Africa: Expands capacity and hardens its network

Dark Fibre Africa is a wholesale, open-access provider to ICASA-licensed operators, ISPs, data centres, and the public sector. The company finances, builds, and runs metro and long-haul routes, and it reports 99.98% uptime on its monitored core. The site lists about 14,000 km of dark fibre that reaches most major cities. The coverage map shows service for business access and backhaul, and the product set spans dark fibre, managed waves, and co-location.

In January 2025, parent Maziv said DFA spent over R800 million on upgrades and that results now show faster delivery and repairs. “We have improved the average number of new circuits delivered from 800 to 1,500 per month,” said Andreas Uys, Maziv CTO. He added that line speeds and capacity are also rising. Dewald Booysen, Maziv COO, said national uptime sits at 99.99% and that force-majeure incidents like construction damage and vandalism have more than doubled over two years.

In August 2025, a Ciena press release described a world-first trial with 1.6 Tb/s on a single wavelength over a DFA route between Isando and Midrand. “This greatly enhances the capability of DFA’s existing network,” said Andreas Uys, noting a plan to scale next-gen services after the upgrade phase.

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Also read: Cloudflare: Enhancing internet infrastructure in Africa

Where Dark Fibre Africa fits in a shifting market

South Africa’s fibre market faces theft and vandalism risks, and DFA confirmed a surge of damage incidents in early 2024. Google has urged African governments to classify fibre as critical infrastructure to improve protection and investor confidence. These pressures raise costs and slow projects, so operators invest in route diversity and faster repair.

At the same time, densifying 5G and low-latency cloud services need more backhaul and metro reach. The GSMA notes that 5G can cut latency by ~10× and drive large traffic growth, so open-access fibre becomes a base layer for mobile and enterprise. In that setting, Dark Fibre Africa sells capacity to many providers on equal terms, so partners can scale without laying duplicate routes.