South African telecommunications provider Telkom plans connecting over twenty suburbs in the country with fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) before year-end.

Suburbs set to be connected by 100Mbps FTTH are in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town (see image above).

In addition, Telkom also plans to deliver LTE connectivity to more suburbs across the country as well.

Telkom’s plan to launch FTTH; though, comes as the company’s fixed line business is under pressure.

According to the company’s group annual results for the year ended 31 March 2014, Telkom’s number of fixed lines fell 4.8% from 3.8 million to 3.6 million.

“Fixed-line voice usage revenue continued on a downward trend, decreasing 7,6% to R7 934 million (2013: R8 591 million),” said Telkom in its results report.

“This can be attributed to a 2,1% decline in voice minutes, resulting from fixed-to-mobile substitution, with a decrease of approximately R190 million relating to the pass through of reduced mobile termination rates to fixed-line customers. In addition, fixed-line voice usage was impacted by a decline in number of lines of 4,8%,” added the company.

Telkom’s ADSL internet subscribers; though, grew 6.5% from 870,505 to 926,944. But this also failed to completely stem falling revenue in its fixed-line data connectivity business in particular.

“Revenue from data connectivity services decreased 0,9% to R5 544 million (2013: R5 595 million), caused by a decline in Diginet and Megalines revenue, due to increased competition and migration to Metro Ethernet services.

“This was partially offset by an increase in Metro Ethernet services revenue. ADSL revenue increased as a result of a 6,5% increase in ADSL subscribers to 926 944 (2013: 870 505),” said Telkom.