In addition to insights from its own network infrastructure, Fibertime uses drones and AI to extract additional demographic signals, such as car counts and roof counts. Picture: AdobeStock Could South Africa’s population be underestimated by tens of millions – and actually sit near 95 million rather than the latest official estimate of 63 million? Township fibre operator Fibertime believes its granular, street-level data may point to a South African population far larger than official figures suggest.
Fibertime, founded in 2022, is best known for connecting households in informal settlements to uncapped fibre for just R5 a day. Through its operations, the company has now taken a growing interest in a different national project – understanding how many people actually live in South Africa. The question emerged through Fibertime’s network-building process, which relies on detailed household mapping, large-scale aerial imaging and advanced modelling.
According to Magnus Rademeyer, former CEO and now head of insights at Fibertime, the need for accurate planning information is fundamental to Fibertime’s work – and to every commercial and government endeavour in the country. “This question has been close to my heart for decades,” Rademeyer says, adding that the scale of Fibertime’s capital investment created an opportunity to address and share insights arising as a byproduct of connecting households across the country. Fibertime’s work on South Africa’s population estimate is being driven in large part by Rademeyer. He has extensive experience in geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial modelling, having co-founded AfriGIS in 1997 – one of South Africa’s first mapping and location-intelligence firms where he was CEO and managing director for more than 20 years.
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