Van Zyl Botha on connecting the unconnected through fibre expansion

Speaker A: Foreign. Hello, it's Aki Anastasiou and welcome to another episode of what's Next. And uh, we are coming at you from the My Broadband studios here at Broad Media headquarters. And it's a great pleasure to welcome to this interview Fonseil Berta, who is the co founder and the CEO of the Heroel Group. And they're a fascinating organization. They've been around since 2013, but their mission, even when they were born, was to really bridge that, that digital divide that we have in our country and really connect the unconnected and really unlock tremendous value in the economy. So Fonseil, it's a great pleasure, welcome to the, uh, show. It's really nice to have you with us. It's your first time with us, so welcome.

Speaker B: Yeah, thank you, Aki. It's a, it's a pleasure to be here. Ah, I, I've always wondered what it takes to get an invite, uh, to the studio. But, uh, very happy to be here.

Speaker A: Listen, you've cracked the invite. So you're here and we're going to get you many, many more times. But yeah, um, I was chatting to Dietlov the other day, uh, the CEO of Wimitel, whom you guys are now part of. And I was, you know, I've been following the success story of Hero Tell for a while now and you guys have done extraordinary stuff. You're an extraordinary person yourself. I mean, going back to 2013, that's when you founded Herotel. So the company's what, 13 years old now?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Um, what was your vision then? How did the idea of starting Herotel come up? And what did you actually want to achieve? Where did this whole idea come from?

Speaker B: Thanks, Akio. It's always the why and then the how to do it. So let's talk about why first. You know, if you remember back to 2012, 2013, our government and media looked a lot different than today.

Speaker A: Very much so.

Speaker B: And the biggest network was a, uh, copper network from Telcom, which was basically failing the small towns. Now, in the metros you've mentioned, Vuma, you know, Joburg, Cape Town, the big metros, there's a lot of options. Yes, you have multiple options of connectivity, but once you leave those metros, there

Speaker A: isn't a lot you were lucky to find. ADSL. Never mind. You remember ADSL?

Speaker B: Exactly. I think they built 2 million houses and I mean, how many houses in South Africa? 16, 17 million. Yeah, so it's really a problem when you, when you leave the metros and you know, the fundamental thing that we wanted to solve was access to information. And you mentioned the digital divide. How do people get access to information? And the solution for that has always been Internet, because once you have that, you're not restricted to, you know, your country's broadcasting. You're not waiting for someone to present anything to you. Yes, you can choose what you want. So the Internet for us was that basic human right, but it's also the underpin of a functioning democracy. If you want to have a functioning democracy, people need to have access to information so that they can see what's happening, they can read, they can find out for themselves. So we love South Africa. We always want to live here, but then we need the democracy to work. And for that to work, we need access to information. So that's sort of the why we started. We could see the rest of South Africa outside of the, you know, their access was deteriorating. And that's, you know, partly gap in the market, but also partly, you know, something that we have to solve for the country.

Speaker A: M M. Look, and I mean, 2013, was there fiber already here in 2013?

Speaker B: I, uh, think it. It's sort of. I mean, in the country. Yeah. So, like, office parks had fiber.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: But it was still very expensive to. To pass home. And that's really what Vumatel pioneered.

Speaker A: Yes. In Parkhurst. Remember that?

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Those oaks in Parkhurst, they are. Dis them so much in the beginning because I couldn't get fiber. But, you know, you make such a good point, because when you think to 2013, um, it was actually a privilege to have any form of connectivity. Right. I mean, we had mobile connectivity, but it wasn't that fast, and it was very expensive.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, but to really, truly get people connected, you really got to roll the fiber out. And. And that's where hero tell the ISP was born. Was it difficult to set up an ISP way back in 2013?

Speaker B: Look, yeah. So firstly, we see ourselves as ISP. I mean, there's a lot of jargon in the industry between fno, the fiber network owner operator and the isp. But how, uh, we started was when we looked at the rest of South Africa, There was always a local company solving a local problem. So whether it was, you, uh, know, Clagstorp or Porch or Robertson or Worcester, there was a local company there that distributed Internet, uh, and we called them WISPs, wireless service providers. They would build towers on mountains, and they'd put a dish at your house, and from that dish, a cable with the same router. You have, you know, wi fi in the home is mostly the same.

Speaker A: Like a mesh network almost. Or is it different to a mesh network?

Speaker B: No, not a mesh. So this is more. You can think of it more like, um, it's called pointer multipoint. So more like a flashlight. So direct signal from a microwave on a mountain to a microwave dish.

Speaker A: Okay. Point of sight, microwave.

Speaker B: And then in the home, you can distribute it, you know, however, uh, you want. And there were about 200 of these companies, and they were initially illegal because they didn't have licenses. That's right.

Speaker A: That's right. That's right.

Speaker B: So when we started off, we said, look, in South Africa, there's no use to duplicate infrastructure. You know, we don't have the most money in the world, the most capital, so let's rather consolidate all these whips. So there was, like, one or two good players in every town. And Eurotao's strategy was to talk to all of them throughout the country, get the best ones, and then sort of stitch them all together so that we have a national network. And then once you have a national network, you know, you can broaden your reach. Because they were also, like, hyper local.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So when we started in 2013, I mean, it took us two years to figure all of this out.

Speaker A: Who is the first one that you remember you went to go and speak to?

Speaker B: Uh, the one in Stellenbosch. Okay. Yeah. I mean, because we're there. And why Stellenbosch? Like, we were a lot younger then, and we needed access to capital and we needed access to smart people.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: You know, and there's a lot of people that move to Stellenbosch. You know, they buy a wine farm or something like that. Ah. And there's a great university with students.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So if you could get capital and you can get talent, you know, and you have a good idea, then, you know, you can find a company and get going. So we, from 2015 to 2018, 33 of those companies joined us.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: So, you know, you can call it a, uh, consolidation or M and a strategy, but we did about 33 acquisitions or deals. And then in 2018, we sort of had a national coverage. And then what happened exactly the same time is the cost of fiber came down from the Parkhurst highs.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Um, the cost of fiber came down probably because of Chinese, you know, manufacturing.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And it came down to a point where we could build fiber at a price point that was affordable to the customer to buy the service.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And so, uh, that's why not in 2013 in Parkest, but in 2019 throughout the whole country. We started building fiber in every town where we only had wireless customers and we could turn that wireless network outward and connect farms and guesthouses.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And so when we look at a town we say, okay, how do we connect everyone in this town, not just the leafy suburb with fiber, all the

Speaker A: people outside as well the township and

Speaker B: everyone outside every farm, every guest house. Because as you said, mobile data is super expensive. You know, if you want download a lot of content over SIM card.

Speaker A: So basically you went from uh, a wireless uh, player. Right. When fiber became more mature, you started rolling out fiber, but then you still use the wireless infrastructure to get to even further areas.

Speaker B: Yes, I mean we had the capital, the equipment already there so you know, we didn't want to replace all of it with fiber and then sit with all that equipment with nothing to do. And we already had the towers so it was simply changing the, the direction of, of that equipment. But fiber is such a good technology because once you use spectrum or, or radio frequency.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: You always run out.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: And that's why SIM cars expensive because you run out.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, but with fiber it's almost unlimited capacity, just going through all the time. So if we can keep everyone in town. So, so when you build a fiber Network, you do 100% coverage. You pass every home in the town.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Then you have to get those customers on the network.

Speaker A: Well yes, you got to get them to join. Exactly.

Speaker B: But you could pass every home, which means you free up all the radio spectrum. Then you can just use that. Outside of that, you got it in the ground.

Speaker A: So for sale. Uh, now 2018. So this is five years later once you start. How many people, how many customers do you have in 2018? Do you remember?

Speaker B: Yeah, in 2018 we probably had about 80,000 wireless customers and, and we had a two uh, small networks, one one in poof tr and an enabling town with 2000 fiber. Wow.

Speaker A: It's incredible. And you're rolling out fiber, you're putting fiber into the ground aggressively. And it must have been so exciting for you just to, to witness this because you know you're actually taking these towns, I mean these outlying towns that you know, people don't necessarily, I mean they're beautiful towns, make no mistake. But know they don't have the same infrastructure as a big uh, city, for example, are ah, you revolutionizing these towns. You're giving people that connectivity. That's empowering and it must have been so exciting and satisfying for you as an organization because at the end of the day. That's what your basis is on. Because you saw, you listen, we can connect this, but ultimately what's in F's mind is you want to connect those people who can't afford the fiber. The people in the town who can't afford to have, you know, 4G probably at the time, or LT, whatever you want to call it. But ultimately you want to connect the unconnected. That's your mission.

Speaker B: Yes, I'd say connect the unconnected, but to do that it has to be uncapped, unlimited, at a good price, because everyone can afford a SIM card. But what can you do with that? If you want to improve your education, if you want to entertain yourself because it's maybe not safe outside, you need an uncapped connection. You need to be able to stream video. So it's one thing to say everyone has a SIM card, but that doesn't mean to us that they've got real Internet connectivity.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, Safava is a technology that gives you that. So the exciting part and the difficult part was I think South Africa is about 220 municipalities and we operate in 180 of them. So we had to start building fiber at the same time everywhere in the country. Uh, so that was exciting.

Speaker A: And expensive.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's capital, so you know, it's expensive if you don't get a return. But if you sign up customers, you know, then it's different. I think our advantage was because of the wireless network. We had people in BUC EE's that could do technical work and we had salespeople in every town. Now if you look at our competitors, they have to establish new offices if they want to go to a new town. Every time, a new office. You have to find a premise, employ people. We've always had local employees in every town.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So if we have a network in a town, we hire people from that town and they work there. And because we had the wireless network, they could do sales and technical work. We could start building fiber simultaneously in every town.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: We didn't have to wait 12 months to establish office and hire people.

Speaker A: That's clear.

Speaker B: So we could move really fast, you know, outside of the Matros.

Speaker A: Mhm. So talk to me about the technology that you used in the wireless network. It's not the same kind of. I guess the, the premise is the same as what you'd have in your home. You have a wireless router and it distributes the. The wireless connectivity. How do you get such coverage in a. In a big town?

Speaker B: So on the Wireless product.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Yeah. So that's a difficult part. As you say in home, it's always a cable coming into your house where that's fiber or anything else, and two routers. So most of the time in your house it looks the same. Um, but to connect someone on wireless, so the spectrum is point to multi point. So you'll have a big antenna on a tower on the mountain, and it will broadcast, let's say, like a lot of beams, where if you look at 5G technology, it's, uh. A lantern.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: You know, when you drive in and out of coverage of a cell tower, you have coverage or not, but everyone in that area. Area can connect.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: The technology that was available to us, because, you know that spectrum is very expensive, could only broadcast like beams of light. So you had to align the dish at the house exactly right. To the dish on the mountain. So there has to be that line of sight.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: It doesn't penetrate trees or walls very well. So it's a very, like a difficult connection. And there's interference, like if it rains or there's wind because you have two dishes moving. Yeah. So, you know, it's not like the best technology in the world, but if you have nothing else, it works for the. Then it is the best. So where we have density and where there's power and backhoe, we'll always build fiber. Yeah, but when density increases and fiber is not economically feasible.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Then wireless, you know, and it, it

Speaker A: gets the job done.

Speaker B: It does get the job done. Look, we. There's other technologies coming that, um, maybe in a month or two time, we'll. We'll talk to you again. Oh, wow. And, and I think there's. There's things like in plan that, that will really connect every South African. But, uh, it's. It's not final yet. So as soon as I can speak about, I will.

Speaker A: But I mean, um, your mission at Hero Tel is everyone connected. And, um, can you remember the first kind of township or informal area that couldn't afford the fibers of the world and that sort of thing that you guys at Hero tell connected and the difference that it made to people's lives? Because I'm sure that you're the kind of person that goes on the ground, talks to people. How's the, uh, experience? And really look at what a difference it's making to people's lives, which was that first area that you covered that follows the mission of Herotel. Everyone's connected.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, again, we always focus from the customer point of view. That's why I say we're almost like an isp.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: The technology for us is like a tool in a toolbox. You use wireless where it works, you use fiber where it works. Or a different technology. Um, but in townships. Yeah, we build Econgala, we build, um, Timbisa, we built Semi King. The first one I went to was L. And there was a local entrepreneur who made ice cream.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And he could only obviously reach the people that he could walk to. But when he got his fiber connection, he could create content. So he created content on, um, TikTok and on Instagram, and then he could reach customers beyond, you know, where. Where he could walk. And his business grew and he. And he could get delivery vehicles involved. And now he's like a, uh, like a regional player. But he was. He was limited to the distance he could walk, and now his. His reach is unlimited.

Speaker A: That is such an exciting story because that's what it's about. That's what excites me when I hear those kind of stories. It gives me such. Not only hope, but, you know, that the township economy and uh, you know, you look at the spaza shops of the world and, you know, the deliveries and, and what it unlocks, it talks to the core of what we were speaking about earlier. Um, about. It's a. It's like a. It's a fundamental right in the world that we're living in today.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: To have access to electricity, to have access to water, to have access to Internet connectivity. Because without it, you know, you can't progress.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, if you had to think about the things you do online.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Whether it's your banking or email and what it would take to do that. If you had no access.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: You had to drive to the bank.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You had to, I don't know, send a fax. How do you communicate? Yeah. You know, so it's not only like.

Speaker A: It.

Speaker B: Not only that it's a human right. But it's also that economic springboard that, um, when the person has talent, the ability and the willingness. Yeah. But communication is his constraint. When you, when you deploy fiber, then in that township you remove his biggest constraint. Yes.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Then if. If that person has talent and is willing to work, then, you know, he can compete against anyone in the world.

Speaker A: Yeah. But I. Heroel is very much differentiated from other isp, so I don't like to call you an isp, even though you categorize as one, because you've got a. A fully vertig, uh, uh, a fully vertical, vertically Integrated model. Right. So in other words, you build, you deploy, you do everything yourself so you're not reliant on somebody else to provide something to you. So you're a complete turnaround company. Right. And, and that makes, that differentiates Herotel to others.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, if you look at it from an asset point of view, you can say, you know, fiber is an asset and you get people to get ISPs to sell that. But again, if you look at, from uh, the customer lens and say, what does the customer actually want? Like no one phones us to tell us the Internet is on. You know, they only phone you when it's off. Yes, because people almost expect it to work all the time. So if you want like the highest uptime you can get and you want the lowest price, uh, and the highest customer satisfaction. So you know, we say our customers are our moat, not where our fiber network is.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So if we give our customers what they want, they'll be with us for a long time. So we look at the customer's need and then we build the network that can satisfy that need. You know, whether it's wireless, uh, or fiber. But yes, after we've built it, we sell it ourselves, we install it ourselves and we provide the Internet services. Now if you don't do those three steps, let's say someone builds the network, someone then takes a job cable from the street into your house. Uh, someone installs your router, then your ISP makes you live. You've already dealt with three or four parties. Now you want WI Fi to work in every room in your house. So you get the local IT guy or techie and he puts a lot of access points through ours. So you, you've dealt with three major players. The owner of the fiber network, the ISP and your in house IT or WI Fi distribution.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Now if your Internet goes on, you do your phone Eurotel.

Speaker A: Well, exactly, but, but, but then that gives you a real competitive advantage, doesn't it? Because you can now compete on price. You can, because you control the ecosystem. You can now control, uh, you, you, you can make it a lot more affordable and you can be a lot more competitive.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean cutting out the middleman is like a bit of a cliche. But there is an extra step in the process that we think takes value away. And if you can do all of that yourself, there's not another layer that you have to make profit on. You can actually collapse that profit. So if you find Euretao, we will come and fix the Internet. It's not the IT guy that argues with the isp, that argues with the F and O. And everyone's pointing fingers at each other. Yeah, the ISP says, my Internet's working. Um, it's the fiber line that's down. The fiber operator says, no, we can see the fiber line is on. It must be your Internet that's not working.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And then they both blame the in house install.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And that takes a while to sort out before someone takes accountability. But with Eurotel, there is no other party involved. So if it's down, the guys, we get into a bucky, we go out and we fix it. If we have to fix it in the street, from the street to your home or in your, um, home, it's all us.

Speaker A: But you've had, you've had to be very innovative. Right, right from 2013 when you looked at those uh, wisps and, and you know how it evolved, you know, using their technologies. Um, you know, the aerial fiber is, you really got to think out the box in terms of line of sight, obstructions, et cetera. You also introduced HERO Prepaid. These solutions have really made you guys a force to be reckoned with in the industry because you've been forced to innovate, you've been forced to think out of the box. And now you talk about another technology which you gave us a clue just now but not telling us enough. And I'm now even more curious to find out what Fundsail has got up his sleeve. But uh, talk to me about the innovation within the company. You must have some very smart people thinking out of the box to find solutions.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean we've got great people at Ertel and, and we get ideas from everywhere in the country. Uh, at the Moment there's about 1,400 people working there, but you know, it's different, uh, up north to the Western Cape, to the Eastern Cape. Uh, so from the people that work at Eurotel, you get different ideas of what can work. Um, aerial fiber for us was just if we had to connect everyone, we couldn't trench everywhere, it takes too long and it's very expensive. So what's another way of doing it, you know, and there's less damage to it because no one can dig up your fiber when they're fixing a water pipe or electricity. Electricity. So the network is actually more protected when it's in the air. And then if you move to different markets, everyone can't sign a debit order and pay monthly. People get paid weekly or bi weekly. And that's why we invented the voucher system where you can pay for 7 days for 99 Rand or you can pay for 14 days or whatever suits you. And how you get paid because it's almost a utility, right? You need water, electricity and Internet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and then another thing people asked us for is mobility. So where's Euro mobile? And you know, to build those towers and to and to buy that spectrum, uh, is a lot of money. So, so we did a proof of concept on the mvno. So virtual network, so we roam on one of the MNO's network. And so we can give people a Eurotel SIM card. So if you're at your house on fiber, you can download all the content you want, whether it's songs or movies. And then when you're in the office there's probably WI fi as well. So your SIM card becomes almost like an emergency service. Okay, so you have a Eurotel sim but you've got WI fi at both places where you spend most of your time. And if you then euro use your Eurotel SIM only when you need to, you reduce your monthly expenses. And that's the thing that we like not how do we charge people more money, how do we save people money so they can spend it with us? So when we look at introducing a product, we're not asking ourselves how can we pull more, we're saying what product will save our customer money so that he has more budget available for the month.

Speaker A: So I mean, do you have actuaries working there? Uh, who comes up with this stuff? Because if you think about it, even, even the seven day voucher system for uh, I've never heard it being done anywhere else in the world. We must certainly be unique in these kind of things that we're talking about.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it is unique. You know, we never wanted to have like a daily product because m for a customer to do 30 transactions like every day after this. And when does it run out? Like at 8 at night? Yes, you know, so, and you're building infrastructure. So ultimately we want to reduce the price over 30 days so people can say when I receive my money and when I plan for the month and I have a budget, I know my Internet's covered for the next 30 days. If my kids are studying, they need access to information for exams or for doing a project, I know I'm covered for the month. And there's no anxiety of, you know, having to ensure it's running all the time. We'll give you the best possible price for 30 days and you're now your connection is sorted.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, uh, you've deployed already 10 gig networks into townships and uh, you know, many parts of the country. And that's, that's impressive in itself through your network. Um, and you've got a pretty strong presence in many, many areas. How do you at HERO ensure that secondary towns and uh, even townships are, are well served by hero?

Speaker B: Yeah, so we don't like distinguish between what a lot of people would call leafy suburbs or townships. We use the best technology we can that's available. Like you mentioned 10 gigabits per second. You know, that's a lot of uh, content that you can look at. And you know where we can build aerial networks? We do some municipalities we have to trench, so we also do, uh, trench networks, but we make sure our network is the same for every South African. Doesn't matter where you live. Yeah, of course it makes it easier for us to support as well because, you know, got exactly the same equipment deployed in every house.

Speaker A: Yeah. But I mean, you know, I was reading uh, um, you know, a study many years ago that they were talking about, you know, densely populated areas. It makes more sense to go with an aerial connection versus, you know, trenching in that, you know, to get into a building, you know, 20 story building, for example. And we've got unique case scenarios in South Africa. We've got those densely populated areas where we've got to do things differently to get the connectivity to your customers.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean South Africa is a bit of a, like, uh, a different use case. If you look at other economies that's the same sort of size than us, uh, let's say Asia or South America, they string everything on poles. Yes. And, and you see like 30 to 100 cables on these poles. And it doesn't look great, but what it does do is give you the cheapest way to connect the most people.

Speaker A: Correct.

Speaker B: But in South Africa, you know, we want to see the ocean or the trees. And, and so we don't allow in our municipal bylaws to string 70 cables at a time. It would, you know, connect our country much faster. But it won't look great.

Speaker A: You must do it in SE Point and it's entry bay block, those oaks views.

Speaker B: I'm sure they'll, they'll enjoy the fast Internet.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so the, the big thing and, and I guess that uh, because you're an entrepreneur at heart and, and you know, this must have been a moment you were working towards because you had a vision in 2013, but 2025 Rumitel come in and say, listen, we want to buy you guys. And, well, it happened before then, actually, but it was completed in 2025, and we were talking about it earlier, before the interview started, because that whole process took, like, three years. It's insane. Uh, so it started in 2022, but December 25th, everything is now complete. Acquisition of Herotel by Maziv. Um, tell me about that journey. How did it start and how does it benefit Herotel? What does it do to you as a company? Because you've still got your independence to follow your passion and to follow your dream that you had in 2013. Tell me about the acquisition, what it means to you and how it's going to affect your organization.

Speaker B: Yeah, so, like I said, 2019, we started rolling out fiber everywhere. And we came to a point that we needed a lot of capital if we wanted to connect every town and the township next to it. We needed access to a lot of money. And you can only get so much, you know, from a bank and still sleep at night, or them still sleep at night. Um, so we went to market to raise capital, and that's where we met Vuma. And that was actually in 2021. And, you know, when you need a big brother and you want to raise capital, uh, you want to do it with the biggest brother, right? Uh, yes. So, uh, Savuma was a preference for us because of their shareholders, and they

Speaker A: already had the presence in the market, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah. And if you wanted to connect everyone in South Africa, you know, it's a lot of capital, so it didn't help us to talk to a smaller player. You know, it could get you somewhere, but it couldn't get you everywhere. Yeah. Um, so I met, um, the guys from Vuma in 2021. It took us about a year to negotiate.

Speaker A: Were they tough in negotiators?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, they're smart guys and they obviously understand the model very well, and they were by far the biggest player then, but they appreciated that we could reach beyond where they could reach.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And they were, uh, operating very successfully in the metros. Um, but they couldn't reach as far as we could.

Speaker A: And you understood that market better than them.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, Dietlov, I mean, he's very passionate about connecting every South African. So how do we really build a national company where we can say we can, uh, connect everyone? So eventually we, we got the, the deal signed and approved, and all our shareholders approved it, and everyone's happy. And we submitted to, to the regulatory authorities and as you said, it took three years. So in that three years, we were all stuck. VUMA didn't build new. You couldn't do anything. If you didn't build newsstands, you couldn't raise capital. You can't change your shares. So I think the country lost almost three years, uh, in that, in terms of us rolling out connectivity. And then in December, it was approved, but we still needed the license regulatory arm to approve, and they approved it the first of June. So that is still this month.

Speaker A: Just this month.

Speaker B: Wow. So from the 2nd of June, we could start talking to each other and say, okay, now that everything's approved, you

Speaker A: know, how do we solve it?

Speaker B: Yeah, how do we solve it? So everywhere we have a presence, we will build those townships next to it. So we'll get to a million homes. And you know, in our homes there's typically five or six people, depending on if the Gogo or the granny, you know, lives there. M. And there's, there's two or three devices per person, you know, because it's a tablet and a phone.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: You know, and, uh, and a tv. And with us there's unlimited connectivity to your router. So we don't care if you have 10 or 30 devices. You can connect everyone in your, um, home with as many devices as you want and you can use as much as you want. If you want to leave YouTube on the older, even if you're not at home. We don't mind.

Speaker A: You don't mind?

Speaker B: We don't mind.

Speaker A: How much? What's. Who's the biggest, uh, uh, data hoarder in your. You must have the top 10 that you see. Oh, there's this worm out in wherever that, that used like 5 terabytes of data last month. Do you have, do you keep those stats?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, there's a couple of niche cases. Niche cases. So you like the, um, you know, gamers or people that work with video content that upload and download. Yes, but that's sort of the, um, out of the ordinary. What I like is like when a guy in Timbisa uses a terabyte, you know, that is a thousand gigs. If you had to buy one gig from a M and O or even, you know, from a bank that's cheap, you know, it's between 20 and 60 random. So a thousand. It's big money is a lot. But with us, he still pays 500 rand. So that's 50 cents a gig, not 20 rand or 50 rand. 50 cents a gig. So that's a hundred times cheaper. That's exciting.

Speaker A: You see, that's how fast are you able to connect someone in a place like Timbisa. Somebody is watching this right now. Say, okay, uh, I need to speak to Hero. Tell how do I get connected? I want fiber in my home in Timbisa. How fast does it happen?

Speaker B: Yeah, so our internal turnaround times, or let's call it a KPI in that is one day.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: We don't always get there because, you know, there's access and sometimes there's things that you have to organize before that. So, uh, our average install time is about three days. Uh, there's a lot that happens, you know, within 24 hours.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Uh, but I'd say on average three days.

Speaker A: And you've got all this fiber in, in the ground, right? In most places. So you.

Speaker B: In the air?

Speaker A: Yeah, over the air, in the ground. But the is, there's fiber.

Speaker B: Yeah. So we'll build 100% of every elf or every property. That is, we'll build the entire network. And then so if you want to, uh, connect it simply from the street, the cable into your house. So if we send someone out to your house, within an hour or two, they'll be done.

Speaker A: Which is the most remote town you have on your network? You know, I mean, places like, like Springbok. Does Springbok have fiber?

Speaker B: Springbok has fiber.

Speaker A: Does poor father have fiber?

Speaker B: Probably not. I think the, um, the smallest town we've built, I think it's a town called Cambridge Town. It's actually a small mining town. They've got 50 houses, so.

Speaker A: And they got fiber.

Speaker B: They all have 100 meg fiber.

Speaker A: That's amazing. I have a friend who stays out in, uh, the northern Cape. Van der Cluff on the dam. You know, there's a place, uh, they don't have fiber yet. Maybe that's a place to go.

Speaker B: Not yet. If you, if you drop me a pin of where to build. Yeah, maybe, you know, I'll send you a bottle of wine.

Speaker A: Okay, deal. Exciting stuff. Listen, you guys are continually innovating. I mean, we're just talking about connecting people. But, but businesses, uh, and, and small entrepreneurs are the heartbeat of this country. We know how many people they employ. We spoke earlier about, you know, the township economy. And I mean that's, that's where the growth is happening. That's where the, the, the engine is of our economy. So talk to me about hero. Tell business, because that's pretty exciting. You guys are still thinking out of the box and innovating. What is business and what Else are you working on?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I think uh, the business industry to, to a large extent has been underserved, you know, again, very well served in the metros.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: But traditionally. Yeah. Ah, when you order a fiber line, they build it to your business.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: To your office park and then distribute, you know.

Speaker A: So there was quite just like dark fiber you're talking about.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And then you know, B2B ISPS, which is light tech fiber that give you connectivity. Uh, but again we've built the old town. So after building the houses, we build the business districts. Every town has a, let's say CBD and an industrial area.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Um, so if the network's already there, our equipment is already there and we have backhaul, we can actually connect businesses at a very affordable price. Business is different. They want a service level agreement or SLA. They want 100% uptime. So sometimes they take fiber and wireless and different uh, technologies to do it. But in all those towns you have a Capitec or you have a shoprite or you have a pep. So Eurotel business was set up to leverage our existing network but to be able to deal with enterprise. So to be able to connect the big banks and the big retailers. Um, so we've got large enterprise clients with 400 branches throughout the country and we run the entire connectivity for them. So it's managed services, voice, es, uh, so a very sort of sophisticated offering. But then we take that product right down to a 999 with a SIM failover. So even if our fiber network is a business can buy connectivity with us that'll be up most of the time. You've got a SIM card and a fiber line in there and we can sell that to that Sposa shop, um, you know, at a low price so they don't have to deal with cash anymore. They can start doing fts or smarter payments, which, you know, makes their life better and safer.

Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. So I was going to talk to you about redundancy, you know, in these areas where you've got your fiber network. So what does redundancy mean in the hero tell world?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a secret. So I can't tell you all of that. Now we've got a classified document that we call the Super Core.

Speaker A: The Super Core?

Speaker B: Yeah, which uh, uh, our network team or CTO designed. So they've designed what they've termed the supercore, um, with multiple redundant paths. So we in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, uh, Terracotta where we host and then we've built 11 of our own data centers, like mini data centers alspred P East London. We don't rent this space out to anyone else. We just use it for our customers.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So we've got two to three paths between all of these data centers.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: So if any network goes down, there's at least one or another one, um, that can connect the customer. But the benefit to that mini local data center is when our customer connects. If you live in pe, your request goes to PE data center and immediately back to you. Okay. Where all the other FNOs have to travel to Joburg, Terrico or to Edicterico, then hand over to ISP and then go back to the customer. So on the Eurotel network, even if you have a lower package, your experience will be much better because your latency, the time and the distance, you know, is much lower. And then that also gives us more redundancy.

Speaker A: So that's your secret sauce, eh? That you're not telling us too much. M. There is a lot of other secrets there. Yeah. Okay. It's like the. What is that KFC say the uh, herbs inspired 12 herbs and spices and that sort of thing. Okay. But, but you have to have. You got to be a differentiator because people don't to be disconnected. You know, something happens. But you've got plan B, which is brilliant. Just coming back to the business, um, the way you look at business fiber at hero, uh, business. Is it like a jeep on. Do you look at from a. Like a jeep on technology? Uh, when you connect, uh, uh, an area where they need to be multiple connections. Uh, it's. Is it the same as like dog fiber where you, you know, they bring a, a big pipe in but you need to distribute it to smaller businesses that might not need such a massive pipe.

Speaker B: Yeah. So uh, I mean the step after GPON is now ex GS bond and that's what's allowed us to have a 10 gigabit per second service. But yeah, we always like dealing directly with the customer. Um, we've got strong channel partners where let's say they'll have a multinational company as a client and they are the appointed partners and they've got a five year contract.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So there we deal with channel. So we give them our maps and say look, we can give you these kind of products and they order on behalf of these customers. So then they manage their service. Um, but we don't build dark fiber and then hope someone sells it for us. Um, which again I think in Metro that makes sense because you want 50 ISPs using their marketing budget, using the people to sell your product. But we are, you know, we employ local people in the town, we're in the business chamber, we're at the sports game.

Speaker A: You know, who needs work.

Speaker B: Yeah. We want to talk to someone.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And understand their real need and then we'll create the product for them.

Speaker A: Brilliant.

Speaker B: Instead of thinking, you know, everyone wants exactly the same thing.

Speaker A: Okay, so the, the whole regulatory thing is now done. Hero tell is part of Maziv. Um, you, you know, you've got the final signatures on 1 June. Everybody is ready to sprint. What is the next look for you in terms of what are you planning to do? Because I'm sure everybody's been waiting to go, go, go. Um, so the next six months are going to be very interesting in the world at Herotel under your uh, under your guidance. What does that look like? And where do you see Heroel in five years from now? What would you like to be and where would you like to be in five years from now?

Speaker B: Yeah. That's very exciting. So yes, we're part of, of the massive group now. So it's Vatel Defa and ourselves.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And um, with Vitacom as a shelter. So we think that's like a strong horizontal alignment. DFA builds dog fiber and backhor mhm Vuma connects the metros and those dense areas and we connect the rest. Um, I think, you know, in South Africa there's probably 7 million homes that's still unconnected. You know, the first 6 million have been done. Obviously there's difficult places to reach. You know, if you go KZN or Eastern Cape, you need a strong uh, electricity grid or power infrastructure. M and you need backhaul before you can do what we do the last mile. Um, so there's some places where we still need to wait for that to be in place. But everything adjacent to us or neighboring us, um, is in our pipeline to build. So I think South Africans can look forward to a lot of fiber. I mean everyone's really going to be connected. If you're close or inside a town, you will have fiber in the next three years. So I think Vuumerthal will build 2 million homes. We'll build a million homes. So then most of South Africans in dense areas will be covered. Uh, but it doesn't mean every South African is covered. But if you want Internet in South Africa in a year or two time, if you say yes, you will get it. It's not a question about will I ever get it. It's Just when will you get it?

Speaker A: Yeah, I, our conversation excites me immensely because you know, this is, this is what true innovation is, you know, just connecting South Africans, getting the, you know, people connected because it's gonna, and, and it's, it's gonna be amazing to see the, the economic value that it's going to unlock in our country. It's, it's super exciting. Are you looking at beyond the borders as well? Taking this formula that you have to roll out ISPs and look at neighboring countries like Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, is that something or are they doing their own thing or is, is that a possibility or am I talking nonsense?

Speaker B: Now look, Africa as a continent is super interesting because we've got the, the highest population, you know, forecast is forecasted growth in the world. So uh, it's not something you can ignore. Yeah, every country has its own, uh, regulator and local rules. So when I think about Africa, for us it would be, you need to find a strong in country partner. But our model will replicate well. So we definitely looking forward to uh, a place where we can look at the entire continent and say, okay, South Africa is fully connected. How do we give access to the entire continent? So yeah, we've got a couple of uh, uh, conversations in play and, and we'll figure out how to do it. But definitely excited about Africa and our ability to operate there.

Speaker A: Yeah, look, it's exciting but you know, we, we know we joke about places like Poaler and Springbok and those kind of places, but you know, the moment those people are connected, then you, you think of, you know, E services and you think of, you know, health services that you can deploy on scale, you know, that those people don't have to go to a clinic, uh, you know, so many kilometers away. I mean all the other stuff that comes with connecting people, that's incredibly exciting as well.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean I don't know if you've used AI to um, write some of your articles or do some of your videos, but, but AI, you know, needs a lot of Internet.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And, and at some stage, you know, companies will have a look at digital workers and, and human workers.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And hopefully companies give people the most interesting work.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And all the repetitive work. You know, you can give that to some uh, AI, uh, agent because it's the same thing happening over and over again. But then you get humans to do the real interesting stuff. Yeah. But for that you need connectivity. But then, yeah, if you're based in poor, you can do any job in the world as Long as you're connected.

Speaker A: And you thought you were talking to a human all this time. I'm actually a bot. It's been a pleasure meeting you.

Speaker B: I must say, you don't age.

Speaker A: Thank you very much for your time.

Speaker B: So much.

Speaker A: Yeah, it was absolutely amazing. Um, good luck. And, um, I'm sure the next. The, uh, next few months are going to be super busy. Now that all the dots and everything is signed, we'll be watching Hero Tell story and we're going to welcome you back to the studio for you to tell us about this new technology you alluded to earlier. I want to hear all about it. Thank you very much for joining us.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: That's Fonse. But, uh, the story of Hero Tell and, uh, you know, the acquisition, founded in 2013, connecting the country and millions of people is quite a task at hand, but it's going to be super exciting. And this is what excites me about technology, just connecting the unconnected. As, uh, you heard from Fale, you know, 7 million people. Is it 7 million that aren't connected yet? Yeah, 7 million. Probably more than that. But, you know, there are literally millions and millions of people that don't have Internet access. Like you watching this right now, streaming this on YouTube. But imagine those who don't have. Imagine when those who don't have get this kind of Internet connectivity, connectivity, what it'll mean to their lives. Fonseil Puerto is the co founder and CEO of the Hero Tell Group, joining us for this episode of what's Next.