Axxess was founded by Franco Barbalich in his one-bedroom flat in 1997, with the aim of providing South Africans with great internet access.
At the time it was called Axxess Africa, and offered internet access through its four internet cafés in Port Elizabeth.
Between 2000 and 2006, the company grew its product range to include hardware sales, personal and business connectivity, as well as website hosting.
In 2008 Axxess won its first Internet Service Provider of the Year award – after launching over 600 Wi-Fi hotspots across South Africa.
In 2009 Andrew Simpson joined the company as the director with a mission to further disrupt the broadband market, by offering great value for money products, backed with world-class service.
Axxess continued to perform well and scooped yet another ISP of the Year award in 2009. In 2013, they moved into their new state-of-the-art offices in Port Elizabeth, which now hosts 90+ employees (AKA Axxenites). 2014 saw the birth of Axxess Mobile – the most affordable mobile data in SA, which includes a three-month data rollover!
Through hard graft and innovation, Axxess has been fortunate enough to gain significant market share to date and has received recognition of Best ISP in South Africa for the third time in 2015 and fourth time in 2016. Being Voted SA’s Most Respected Telecoms Company in MyBroadband and having received recognition of Best ISP in South Africa is something the entire team is very proud of!
“Axxess is currently one of the largest privately owned ISPs in the country, but we will never forget where we come from. We will continuously strive to uphold our reputation of being SA’s favourite Internet Service Provider,” says Franco. Both Franco and Andrew still remain part of Axxess and their vision to provide brilliant broadband, great prices, and amazing, good old-fashioned service still drives the business.
Who are they?
Sure, they provide internet and their job is to sell and support simple and affordable ADSL, fibre, mobile data and hosting services. But that’s what they do. It’s not who they are.
They are all about their clients. They aim to be the most client-centric ISP in SA – to make “getting connected” so easy and seamless that anyone and everyone can have access to the World Wide Web.
They also operate a 24/7 technical support call centre in order to offer clients peace of mind, knowing that there is always a wacky (but knowledgeable) person available to assist them.
Being there for their clients is of utmost importance to them, and they continue to invest in new systems and technologies to help them give clients the Axxess experience.
What drives Axxess?
Besides good strong coffee… it has to be their team. “Our team means the world to us and we continue to live and thrive in our ethos of being the Fun, Fantastic and Fabulous Internet Company,” say Andrew and Franco.
So you can well imagine the energetic and vibrant culture flowing through their office walls. There is an incredible sense of teamwork and ownership within the company, and the team continues to create an incredible place to work. In 2015 they built one of the biggest independent networks in SA. This new network was built from the ground up, using the best traffic management software and hardware available.
It includes multiple IPC connections per region, and five international routes, which ensures low latency for clients. Having their own network allows Axxess to drive down costs, which they pass onto their clients.
It also provides a strong backbone that lets Axxess provide you with rock-solid internet. In 2016, they launched Ultra-Fast Fibre-To-The-Home services and in 2017 they released a new cost-effective VoIP services called Axxess Voice, as well as super-fast LTE-A. In 2018 they will be working on a couple of super exciting projects, which they can’t wait to share with you!
Axxess will be giving away a whopping R50 000 in cash, PLUS 10 x R1 000 weekly cash giveaways for the next 10 weeks!
Here’s how easy it is to enter:
- Simply sign up for any Axxess Fibre service and you’ll automatically be entered into the weekly cash giveaway and final grand prize draw.
- Then follow the hashtag #FibreFridays on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see if you’re one of the lucky R1 000 winners or the grand prize winner of R50 000!
When will the winners be announced?
Each Friday, starting from Friday 27 July 2018, we will announce one lucky draw winner from all entries previously received. So, the sooner you sign up – the better your chance of WINNING!
The big R50 000 prize will be announced by 31 October 2018. The competition closes on 30 September 2018.