Investing in a small fibre company in 2008 paved the way for medical devices salesman Albert Oosthuysen to launch Net Nine Nine, a company bridging the digital divide by providing internet access in townships.
Oosthuysen was working as a contractor in the fibre network sector for companies that provided services in the suburbs, but not townships. So he started Evotel in 2015 to fill the gap.
“We said we should build our own network that we can basically monetise over a long period of time. And that’s how Evotel started; it was the first one in the journey.”
When the business started securing funding from banks and could expand, Oosthuysen said he tried to expand into a township in Rustenburg but ran into problems with the local municipality.
We started boxing with the municipality ... We were not too clear as to why they were fighting us, but we ended up going to court. Really stupid thing to do
— Albert Oosthuysen, Net Nine Nine founder
“We started boxing with the municipality ... We were not too clear as to why they were fighting us, but we ended up going to court. Really stupid thing to do, but we did, and we lost,” he said.
Oosthuysen roped in Nicholas Thipe, now chief of staff at Net Nine Nine, who gained insights into what the community wanted.
“We didn’t know how this was supposed to work, so when we were met with hostility, we definitely reacted the same way,” Oosthuysen said. “Turns out all the locals wanted was for us to hire people from the community for the project.”
Oosthuysen sought to target the largely untapped market in townships. Funders got on board and Net Nine Nine was born in 2020.
“Trust is a big thing for people in the townships. They have been taken advantage of for so long that it wasn’t easy for them to just take what we said at face value. They needed to know that we would keep to our promises, and we do.”
Net Nine Nine is an internet service provider tailored for townships. Packages range between R379 and R700, and clients can connect between five and 15 devices per household.
Collaboration with the community was extremely important as it also eliminated vandalism and theft of the company’s infrastructure. Oosthuysen said locals knew they were benefiting from the project, so they ensured that the infrastructure was protected.
Another hurdle was operating in a market where some clients could not make electronic transactions. “We had a lot of people who wanted to pay cash and wanted to see where their money went.”
Net Nine Nine opened brick-and-mortar stores to ensure that customers could make cash payments. The outlets — there are 11, with five more opening soon — also generated community trust in the company.
“They believed in us because there was an actual store, and it didn’t seem like we were a scam. They know they can go there with any complaints or if they need help. Some of our customers are older and come into the shops to find out how to connect their phones to the internet.”
Today, the start-up employs 200 permanent staff members, and 300 other people are contracted to it. It has networks in 15 townships, serving more than 214,000 households across eight provinces.
To give back to the community and drive its mission to bridge the digital divide, the company provides free fibre connections to 56 schools and popular spots in the communities where it operates.
Oosthuysen said the long-term goal was to reach 1.5-million households by 2027 and to expand its footprint in large townships such as Soweto where it was competing with more established service providers.
“We would like to get back those customers, but we are also looking at other places where we can operate. We are excited about the future,” he said.
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