South Africa faces a new kind of land grab, not with bulldozers, but with fibre cables.
In the name of “connectivity,” white-owned telecom giants are capturing township markets that black-owned Internet Service Providers (ISPs) built from the ground up.
We are not watching history repeat itself, we are living through its digital version.
The 1913 Natives Land Act dispossessed black people of over 80% of their land. Today, most of that land has not been returned.
What we see now is a second wave of dispossession, only this time, it's not farms and homes, but the space and potential of the digital economy being taken away.
Townships — once considered unbankable — are now battlegrounds for fibre rollout, not by local operators, but by well funded white-owned corporations like Vumatel and Fibretime, who ignored these areas until the demand was proven by small-black owned ISPs like Khula Technologies and Soliscom.
A history of exclusion
South Africa’s telecom history mirrors its broader inequality.
Under apartheid, infrastructure investment favoured white suburbs and industries. Post-1994 liberalisation opened the sector but did little to transform ownership or access.
Most fibre infrastructure today remains in the hands of a few white-owned companies.
Licensing, capital constraints, and policy inertia have kept black operators at the margins, especially in last-mile connectivity.
Fibertime is one of the most aggressive actors in this digital conquest.
They’ve entered townships under the guise of development but built their network primarily through white Afrikaner contractors.
Only small portions of work are subcontracted to locals, and often at exploitative rates.
This mirrors colonial extractivism: the capital stays white, while black contractors dig trenches for survival.
When black communities push back, they’re labelled “construction mafia”, yet these same companies rely on strongmen to control the narrative when it suits them.
Township economy
According to a 2023 ICT Access Survey, only 1.7% of rural households had internet access.
In urban areas, access often exceeds 70%.
The market gap should be an opportunity for black operators, but instead, it’s being swallowed by capital-heavy fibre giants like Fibertime, Vumatel, and Herotel.
Black ISPs built wireless networks when no one else would.
For instance, EC Internet has deployed wireless infrastructure in underserved communities such as Duncan Village, Leaches Bay, and Mdantsane in the Eastern Cape.
Similarly, Mdantsane Mobile has been operating within Mdantsane and surrounding townships, bringing connectivity to areas long ignored by mainstream providers.
Now they’re being priced out by corporations using wholesale access and strategic backers to dominate the very communities they neglected for years.
Double standards
Banks and development financiers continue to block black-owned ISPs from scaling.
Applications to IDC, NEF, or SEFA are met with red tape and delays.
Meanwhile, white-owned operators receive millions or even billions from private equity, allowing them to undercut, outbuild and outlast local competition.
The same government that speaks of township revitalisation stands idle while market capture unfolds under its nose.
The message is clear: black entrepreneurs are welcome to survive, but not to succeed.
If we lose the township market now, we will never get it back. These communities are the last open ground for ownership in digital infrastructure.
Once white-owned fibre is entrenched, monthly contracts, brand lock-in, and market inertia will keep them there.
Just as the land was lost and never returned, this market could be permanently colonised, leaving black people as digital tenants on networks we neither own nor control.
Urgent action for equity
This is not just about business, it’s about power, justice, and the right to own the tools of the future.
South Africa needs decisive interventions:
- Halt fibre rollouts that exclude local players and communities;
- Investigate subcontracting abuse and unfair labour practices;
- Provide state-funded wholesale access to help local ISPs compete;
- Earmark public funding for township connectivity led by black operators;
- Prioritise township spectrum in upcoming licensing processes. If government won’t act, communities must.
There must be accountability where public resources enable exclusion. Equity must be enforced, not just mentioned in policy brochures.
We were stripped of land, dignity, and economic power in the past.
This time we are being stripped of the digital future. But the difference is, we see it happening in real time.
We are not asking for inclusion. We are demanding ownership. If we don’t act now, our children will inherit fibre networks they don’t own, built by hands that were never allowed to profit from them.
The townships are not charity cases, they are the last frontier of ownership. And this time, we are not giving it back.
Luvo Grey is secretary-general of the national lobby group Progressive Blacks in ICT
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