Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa face significant financial pressure in 2026. According to the Small Business Growth Index, only 38% of surveyed SMEs in 2025 will be able to survive more than a year at current cost levels without external assistance.
The situation is exacerbated when these SMEs are subjected to unplanned internet outages. The International Finance Corporation and the World Bank note that SMEs in emerging markets are particularly vulnerable to such failures because they lack sufficient reserves, such as funding, backup networks, or alternative communication channels.
In this reality, the choice of an internet service provider ceases to be determined solely by speed or price, transforming into a risk management issue. The Fiber-to-the-Business (FTTB) market has reached maturity: coverage maps overlap, prices are compressing, and speed levels are standardized. However, what happens after the sale is not standardized, and this is where companies experience the greatest strain.
A connectivity failure directly affects revenue. One day of downtime for a small business negatively impacts numerous aspects—from revenue to productivity and reputation. For businesses using cloud accounting, customer CRM platforms, VoIP telephony systems, and payment gateways, downtime means the entire business ecosystem stops. None of these tools can function without a connection, leading to an almost complete halt of company operations.
If the support system provided by the Internet Service Provider (ISP) is limited to a WhatsApp number available during working hours, the SME remains paralyzed until a specialist responds, and response time always depends on the Service Level Agreement (SLA).
While designing systems for connection stability is important, it will not solve a problem requiring technical intervention. Support plays a decisive role here—having a team empowered to escalate the issue, monitor its resolution, and accompany it until the malfunction is completely fixed. For a company that is offline for more than 12 hours, the difference is critical between a provider who pressures the relevant Fiber Optic Network Operator (FNO) to resolve the situation and one that requires the client to monitor the process independently.
The enterprises that invest the most in cloud infrastructure are the most at risk. As SMEs move core operations outside the office—to hosted platforms, Software as a Service (SaaS) tools, and remote work environments—their tolerance for connectivity failures decreases. The absence of local backups, a manual action plan, or the ability to conduct trade during an outage, as was possible with old paper operations, makes the connection the essence of the business. Consequently, the support behind this connection must be treated with the same seriousness as the connection itself.
An important question to ask any ISP is what happens two hours after a line failure—does anyone respond when you call. Many providers in this market do not even provide a contact number. Fiber optic lines can fail, and no provider can prevent this. The difference between a half-day outage and a three-day period is determined by the support team that responds within two minutes, knows which FNO is responsible for the fault, and continues working on the problem until the business returns online. This is what distinguishes one provider from another.
