An internet service provider in South Africa has acquired a drone company to help speed up the mapping out of the areas it serves.
Fibertime is a township fibre company that offers 100Mbps uncapped for R5 a day in the mostly underserved high density suburbs of South Africa. Founded by ex-iBurst/Mxit CEO Alan Knott-Craig Jr, the company says it has a client base of 521,000 homes (almost one million people), with a projected growth one million homes in the immediate future.
Fibertime says it has been outsourcing the services of a drone company to conduct aerial surveys in sphere of influence, an undertaking that was costing it a reported thousands of dollars, because municipal and census data on townships is not accurate enough to serve the company’s objectives.
“When we deploy fibertime™ in townships we need accurate ground data so that we can plan our network,” said Knott-Craig Jr last week.
“The problem is the municipal and census data on townships is definitely not accurate.
“So we started using drones to create our own up-to-date mapping info using 3D aerial imagery that can be used for engineering drawings that are in turn submitted to municipalities for wayleaves.
“After spending millions on drone surveys, we said f—k it, let’s just buy a drone company.”
So Fibertime forked out capital and purchased FlightPlan Precision Drones outright. The drone company uses LiDAR and 3D imagery to build accurate ground maps for fibre planning and wayleaves, with AI models that get sharper each flight.
Previously, their working relationship with Fibertime had seen the latter company grow from 80,000 to 521,000 homes in under two years.
Fibertime had switched from providing its services as WiFI to fibre internet in areas like Kayamandi in Stellenbosch, Western Cape Province, where WiFI provision was facing challenges due to the houses having corrugated iron roofs.
On purchasing the drone company outright and eliminating the middleman, Knott-Craig said it was way less expensive than hiring out the drones, and faster too, as they now did not have to wait the provider to be available.
“Very happy to welcome FlightPlan to the fibertime™ family,” Knott-Craig said.
“Our pipeline is now close to one million homes, all of which have to be accurately plotted before they can be connected to fibre.
“Drones are the answer.”