The world is going through a significant shift, driven both by increasing digital transformation and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many traditional approaches have had to evolve rapidly to meet these new circumstances. One only has to look at how schooling has changed in the past 18 months, with access to education for some becoming more virtualised; the same with healthcare, or the rapid developments in ecommerce during this period.

According to Vino Govender, chief of Strategy, M&A and Innovation at Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), all of the above changes are highly reliant on connectivity that is both high-speed and high-quality. The fact is that while some of the last mile might be covered by 5G, the real infrastructure that sits behind it and makes it work so effectively is fibre.