Big plans for fibre in townships

Bradley Prior

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Big plans for fibre in townships

Isizwe — the fibre network operator connecting Kayamandi households with 100Mbps fibre for as little as R5 a day — has big plans for the future, including creating a lower entry point for streaming in the suburb.
 
Someone please education me in simple terms what are the main difference between fibre tower and cellphone tower
And this service vs normal WiFi hotspot
Because I thought public WiFi hotspot is compromised when it comes to hacking and why they called their product fibre not wireless broadband
Or is something like MTN Air fibre drama
 
This is good stuff, but should be in all the townships this year still. Everything always seems to stagnate and not grt complete or dropped halfway
 
Briggs said the towers are connected using power-over-fibre cabling
Does someone have more info on how this works, or if it is just misleading and they are running a copper cable alongside the fibre cable?

With my limited understanding of these things, I don't see how you could provide power over fibre without pushing enough "light" down the fibre that would make it rather dangerous in the event of a fibre break.
 
Does someone have more info on how this works, or if it is just misleading and they are running a copper cable alongside the fibre cable?

With my limited understanding of these things, I don't see how you could provide power over fibre without pushing enough "light" down the fibre that would make it rather dangerous in the event of a fibre break.
a few watts only .usually .power companys in civilised countries use it for transmission equipment on the lines .probably with a laser diode and a photovoltaic reciever much like a mini solar panel on the recieving side
 
Someone please education me in simple terms what are the main difference between fibre tower and cellphone tower
And this service vs normal WiFi hotspot
Because I thought public WiFi hotspot is compromised when it comes to hacking and why they called their product fibre not wireless broadband
Or is something like MTN Air fibre drama

Cellphone tower - large range, different frequencies, requires spectrum etc.
Wifi tower - Like your house, just powered differently and probably boosted signal.

With regards to hacking, I don't know. Perhaps @r00igev@@r would know?

I'm guessing its advertised as fibre as that is the infrastructure powering it. Same way you have fibre at home. Also, if the end user complain about advertising when they're paying R5 a day for 100mbs, they can f-off.
 
From the details in the article the fibre is from Hexatronic and the WiFi from Cambium. The latter is a basic WiFi access point with not fancy pants proprietary security. But in the context of WiFi, it's good enough.

As far as hacking you would assume they have client isolation. If not, then they in the kuk. Next would be the walled garden. Have no idea how they do that in this case but often they are vulnerable like the ones in you garden variety cafe/restaurant.
Also the portal used to transact would be an attack vector as well. Often the easiest to exploit as often not bullet proof.
A cell tower has a more robust mechanism as it uses a physical device on the end point and a secure issuing process via an HSM. Only hackable via social engineering in most instances. That increases the cost and isn't affordable for WiFi installations.
 
And yet my side of the road in N1 City still does not have fibre :(
 
Afterall 100mbps tower capacity.
 
Someone please education me in simple terms what are the main difference between fibre tower and cellphone tower
And this service vs normal WiFi hotspot
Because I thought public WiFi hotspot is compromised when it comes to hacking and why they called their product fibre not wireless broadband
Or is something like MTN Air fibre drama

So this won't transmit anything via airwaves. It will all be done via cables. Just like the power in townships, there will be a central "tower" with the cables running from there.

“There is simply too much interference in the air when you try to connect so many people wirelessly,” Knott-Craig said.”That is why the only solution for proper, uncapped, township Internet is fibre.”

 
Just hope Vodacom is not the ISP.

Useless cnuts did a software update on my router more than 2 weeks ago. Since then, internet works but UDP traffic is blocked. Try and tell the frontline support that... It's now been escalated to level 3 support and still none of the useless fk'rs can fix the issue. Give me the damn router password and I'll do it myself.
 
So this won't transmit anything via airwaves. It will all be done via cables. Just like the power in townships, there will be a central "tower" with the cables running from there.

“There is simply too much interference in the air when you try to connect so many people wirelessly,” Knott-Craig said.”That is why the only solution for proper, uncapped, township Internet is fibre.”

Fibre tower statement confused me but when you say central tower is quite clear just like vumatel housing their FTTH equipment/infrastructure at nearest school facility, I guess slicing we be key tech like 5:1 ratio not 1:1
 
Just hope Vodacom is not the ISP.

Useless cnuts did a software update on my router more than 2 weeks ago. Since then, internet works but UDP traffic is blocked. Try and tell the frontline support that... It's now been escalated to level 3 support and still none of the useless fk'rs can fix the issue. Give me the damn router password and I'll do it myself.
Definitely the worst ISP around and Webafrica is a breeze comparatively. The only thing their cr@ppy Huawei CPE is good for is a hammer.

But the article states the ISP is Liquid.
 
You not going to meet the price point without using wifi.

Meeting the price point or not, the quote from Knott-Craig seemed to imply they will run cables into people's houses/shacks the same way powerlines are run.
 
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