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Fixed wireless provider Comsol is using the billions of rand recently raised from investors to go after South Africa’s lucrative home fixed-internet market.The company, a wholesale connectivity and network infrastructure provider that was established 29 years ago, provides infrastructure that can be used by the likes of internet service providers (ISPs) to offer internet access products to homes and businesses. While operators such as Openserve, Frogfoot and Vumatel use fibre, Comsol uses wireless technology for its internet connection.The company will be entering the home broadband market as a wholesale provider of 5G infrastructure. Fixed connectivity has the highest rate of internet data consumption as people stream music and video, connect various devices to Wi-Fi and increasingly work remotely. Moreover, 85% of homes in South Africa are not connected to fibre amid rising demand for fixed connectivity. According to MyBroadband about 6-million homes are passed by fibre in South Africa. Stats SA estimates there are 19-million households.Comsol’s founder and CEO Iain Stevenson sees an opportunity to capitalise on that gap, moving people away from expensive mobile data to fixed wireless, which offers cheaper prices, more stable connections and faster speeds through 5G. The company is using fresh funding from new and existing investors to make this happen. The new investors are Platform Investment Partners, which has made 10 founder-stage fibre investments across four geographies over the past decade, and Wimsey Capital, a privately held investment company.The new shareholders came in after the exit of Nedbank Private Equity from its investment in Comsol. Andile Ngcaba’s Convergence Partners, a big shareholder and investor since 2007, with Solcon Capital, is investing additional capital. Stevenson, through his Mactavish Investments vehicle, has retained his stake and has also invested additional capital. FirstRand’s investment banking arm, RMB, arranged and provided a funding solution to enable the shareholder transaction and is geared up to support the rollout of the business’s capital expenditure.Stevenson would not be drawn on the exact amount raised, telling Business Day that “multiple billions” would be invested in the 5G network. The company has been building its network for the past six months, already covering more than a million households in Gauteng. It is targeting full coverage of Gauteng by March 2027, with expansion into the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and major regional centres to follow in the next two years.Comsol aims to blanket South Africa with about 2,000 base stations, representing one of the country’s largest “standards-based and highest-capacity” 5G networks.The network creates a new wholesale option for South African ISPs, “giving them more network capacity choice through new infrastructure, enhancing the competitive landscape to the benefit of the consumer”, it said.Stevenson said: “Comsol anticipates where the market is heading and builds ahead of demand.“This is why we were investing in licensed spectrum years before its strategic value was widely understood and building private 5G before the market had grasped what it would enable. We see 5G-Advanced for the home as a big growth opportunity.“Icasa has allocated spectrum to network providers to expand broadband access and increase competition in the market. We believe the way to honour that mandate is to build wholesale infrastructure that extends high-speed broadband to new customer segments and creates a platform for more competition at the well-established service provider layer.” Business Day
