Afrihost

Last updated

Afrihost (PTY) Ltd
Afrihost
Type Private
Industry Telecommunication
Founded2000
Headquarters Johannesburg, South Africa
Area served
South Africa
Key people
Products LTE
Voice
FTTH
Website www.afrihost.com

Afrihost is a South African Internet Service Provider (ISP) providing a number of services, including ADSL broadband, fibre, fixed wireless, mobile services and web hosting. A proposed merger with Cool Ideas, another ISP, has been approved by regulators. [1]

Contents

The company was established in 2000 by CEO Gian Visser, [2] Brendan Armstrong and Peter Meintjes, who were later joined by Greg Payne (former COO of Internet Solutions). Originally a web hosting and general IT services company, the firm joined the broadband market in 2009. The original executives have since been joined by Angus MacRobert, former CEO of Internet Solutions and joint CEO of Vox Telecom. [3] Dean Suchard, formerly CFO of Dimension Data, joined the board as Financial Director in 2016. [4]

Services

In 2000, Afrihost offered web hosting services. [2] [5] As of 2018, it is a broadband and telecoms service provider as well, which offers ADSL, VDSL, broadband, fiber-to-the-home, mobile voice and mobile data services. [6] [7]

In 2011, Afrihost acquired Axxess, [8] an ISP founded in 1997 which offers FTTH (Fibre) Internet services through most service providers including OpenServe and Vumatel. [9] [10]

MTN Group's purchase and sale of stake in Afrihost

In 2014, MTN Group purchased 50.02% of Afrihost's shares for R408 million. However, in 2016, MTN Group sold its stake in Afrihost. [11] [12]

Accomplishments

In 2017, Afrihost won various industry awards for its Fibre and ADSL offerings, as well as for its customer care. [13] [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

The following is an outline of communications technology in Morocco.

Telecommunications in Saudi Arabia have evolved early in the Kingdom since the establishment the Directorate of Post, Telephone and Telegraph (PTT) in 1926.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telecommunications in South Africa</span> Overview of telecommunications in South Africa

Telecommunications infrastructure in South Africa provides modern and efficient service to urban areas, including cellular and internet services. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) is the watchdog of the telecommunications in the country.

Telecommunications in Eswatini includes radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spark New Zealand</span> Telecommunications company in New Zealand

Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications and digital services company providing fixed-line telephone services, mobile phone services, broadband, and digital technology services including cloud, security, digital transformation and managed services. Its customers range from consumers to small - medium business, government agencies and large enterprise clients. It was formerly known as Telecom New Zealand until it was rebranded to Spark in 2014. It has operated as a publicly traded company since 1990. Spark's mobile network reaches 98% of New Zealand, with over 2.5 million mobile connections and 704,000 broadband connections

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TPG (ISP)</span> Australian internet service provider

TPG is an Australian internet service provider that specialises in consumer and business internet services as well as mobile telephone services. As of August 2015, TPG is the second largest internet service provider in Australia and is the largest mobile virtual network operator. As such, it has over 671,000 ADSL2+ subscribers, 358,000 landline subscribers and 360,000 mobile subscribers, and owns the second largest ADSL2+ network in Australia, consisting of 391 ADSL2+ DSLAMs. It also operates in New Zealand.

Telkom SA SOC Limited is a South African wireline and wireless telecommunications provider, operating in more than 38 countries across the African continent. Telkom is majority state-owned (55.3%) with the South African government owning 40.5% of Telkom, while another 14.8% is owned by another state-owned company - the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which is closely linked to the South African government.

KCOM Group is a UK communications and IT services provider. Its headquarters are in the city of Kingston upon Hull, and it serves local residents and businesses with Internet and telephony services. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange but is now privately owned by Macquarie Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MTN Group</span> Multinational telecommunications company based in South Africa

MTN Group Limited is a South African multinational mobile telecommunications company, operating in many African and Asian countries. Its head office is in Johannesburg. As of December 2020, MTN recorded 280 million subscribers, making it the 8th largest mobile network operator in the world, and the largest in Africa. Active in over 20 countries, one-third of the company's revenue comes from Nigeria, where it holds about 35% market share.

JetStream and Mobile JetStream are two former brand names used by Spark New Zealand to market its retail and resale ADSL-based fixed line and CDMA2000-based 3G wireless Internet access offerings respectively. The retail ADSL offering from its own Internet service provider, Xtra, was commonly referred to by the company as Xtra Broadband. "Jetstream" is no longer used, and has been replaced with "Ultra" for their Broadband and Mobile offerings. Xtra branding was retired in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orcon Limited</span> New Zealand telecommunications company

Orcon Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications company. It is New Zealand's fourth largest Internet service provider (ISP). In 2013 it had a 5% share of the fixed line market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet in South Africa</span> Overview of the Internet in South Africa

The Internet in South Africa, one of the most technologically resourced countries on the African continent, is expanding. The Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .za is managed and regulated by the .za Domain Name Authority (.ZADNA) and was granted to South Africa by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 1990. Over 60% of Internet traffic generated on the African continent originates from South Africa. As of 2020, 41.5 million people were Internet users.

Internet in Australia first became available on a permanent basis to universities in Australia in May 1989, via AARNet. Pegasus Networks was Australia's first public Internet provider in June 1989. The first commercial dial-up Internet Service Provider (ISP) appeared in capital cities soon after, and by the mid-1990s almost the entire country had a range of choices of dial-up ISPs. Today, Internet access is available through a range of technologies, i.e. hybrid fibre coaxial cable, digital subscriber line (DSL), Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and satellite Internet. In July 2009, the federal government, in partnership with the industrial sector, began rolling out a nationwide fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) and improved fixed wireless and satellite access through the National Broadband Network. Subsequently, the roll out was downgraded to a Multi-Technology Mix on the promise of it being less expensive and with earlier completion. In October 2020, the federal government announced an upgrade by 2023 of NBN fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) services to FTTP for 2 million households, at a cost of A$3.5 billion.

Internet access is widely available in New Zealand, with 94% of New Zealanders having access to the internet as of January 2021. It first became accessible to university students in the country in 1989. As of June 2018, there are 1,867,000 broadband connections, of which 1,524,000 are residential and 361,000 are business or government.

In Singapore, there are 11,512,900 broadband Internet subscribers. There are three major Internet service providers in Singapore, namely, Singtel, StarHub, and M1 and other growing providers like MyRepublic and ViewQwest. Over the years, the Singapore Government has been promoting the usage of broadband Internet access, as part of its Intelligent Nation 2015 (iN2015) and Smart Nation initiative.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Primus Telecommunications (Australia)</span> Australian subsidiary of the telecommunications provider

iPrimus is an Australian telecommunications company and wholly owned subsidiary of Vocus Communications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MWEB</span> Internet Service Provider based in South Africa

Mweb is an Internet Service Provider based in South Africa since 1997.

Telecommunications in Ivory Coast include radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet.

Gian Visser is a South African entrepreneur and innovator in the internet services sector of South Africa. Visser is the current CEO and co-founder of Afrihost and has won several awards for his work in the telecommunications sector.

References

  1. Pai, Shailaja (24 August 2021). "South Africa okays Afrihost, Cool Ideas merger". Developing Telecoms. Retrieved 26 August 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Q&A with Afrihost CEO Gian Visser". TechCentral. 23 March 2010. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  3. "Vox to focus on strategy". ITWeb.co.za. 15 July 2011. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
  4. "MTN sells out of Afrihost". South Africa: Independent Online. 26 June 2016. Retrieved 29 October 2017.
  5. "2017 MyBroadband Conference in photos". MyBroadband.com. 27 October 2017. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  6. "Uncapped ADSL and Fibre – South African ISPs' fair usage levels and throttling" . Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  7. "New Afrihost mobile voice prices unveiled" . Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  8. "Afrihost-Axxess deal concluded". MyBroadband. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  9. "Axxess upgrades speeds and cuts prices for services on Vumatel network". Telecom Paper. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
  10. "Vumatel price cuts on Axxess released". MyBroadband. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
  11. "MTN buys controlling stake in Afrihost - TechCentral". TechCentral. 2 June 2014. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  12. Okunola, Folarin. "MTN: Telecom giant dumps 50% stake in Afrihost" . Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  13. Memeburn (15 September 2017). "These companies won big at the 2017 PriceCheck Awards - Memeburn". Memeburn. Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  14. "Gear of the Year Awards - ADSL and Fibre Providers - htxt.africa". htxt.africa. 21 February 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2018.