Fibre: Secunda Community

eddief1 said:
Why don't you guys do it yourself :) Target a block, put some switches in a IP68 outdoor enclosure and run fibre down the roads for that block, create rings using MPLS and utilise DFA where you can for connecting nodes and backhaul, hardest part is digging which I am sure someone locally can do :-)
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And the up part of doing that is, the money ISP's pay in line rental can go back into the community, or if you want you just don't charge any line rental, and get the cheapest internet possible.
 
DERoestorf said:
And the up part of doing that is, the money ISP's pay in line rental can go back into the community, or if you want you just don't charge any line rental, and get the cheapest internet possible.
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Well you need to pay for the rollout, so probably have to charge some kind of line rental.

Been done many times in other parts of the world using various schemes...b4rn.org.uk is quite a good one using shares where subscribers actually own part of the network, pretty cool and very successful.
 
Wow that is amazing!!

Sounds awesome to do it ourselves, would need some capitol to start with.... and some legal brains, would also need some one with knowledge on fibre ect. It can be done, but most probably wont =(.
 
Henry.de.kock said:
Wow that is amazing!!

Sounds awesome to do it ourselves, would need some capitol to start with.... and some legal brains, would also need some one with knowledge on fibre ect. It can be done, but most probably wont =(.
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Damn you are pessimistic :-) It's all doable, quite simple actually...if you have the will it's easy to find the way. There are no legal challenges etc, biggest issue is capital and after that the digging as that amounts to over 60% of the total cost.

Secunda (judging by google street view) has something quite unique, almost all roads I saw have concrete curbs, which gives you the option of trenching between curb and verge, no digging, greatly reducing cost and almost negating the chance of hitting other stuff when trenching:

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Above you can see a slot cut to place microduct into
 
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eddief1 said:
Damn you are pessimistic :-) It's all doable, quite simple actually...if you have the will it's easy to find the way. There are no legal challenges etc, biggest issue is capital and after that the digging as that amounts to over 60% of the total cost.

Secunda (judging by google street view) has something quite unique, almost all roads I saw have concrete curbs, which gives you the option of trenching between curb and verge, no digging, greatly reducing cost and almost negating the chance of hitting other stuff when trenching:
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And the moment the municipality works on the road, they dig up all your microducts :) I'd be very surprised if a muni gives a way leave to allow that kind of trenching. Reinstatement of a tar surface is also much more expensive than the grass just a meter away (from the attached pic). There's reasons why they want the ducts away from the road.

Also don't forget your ECNS and ECS licenses with the annual renewal fees :-)
 
savage said:
And the moment the municipality works on the road, they dig up all your microducts :) I'd be very surprised if a muni gives a way leave to allow that kind of trenching. Reinstatement of a tar surface is also much more expensive than the grass just a meter away (from the attached pic). There's reasons why they want the ducts away from the road.

Also don't forget your ECNS and ECS licenses with the annual renewal fees :-)
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You trench here:
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Honestly how often do the municipality widen those curbs or remove them?
 
LOL - good luck with the municipality. They will have a hissy fit. At best, you will need to be on the other side of the tree, more than likely rather against the property's fence (there where all the utilities also lies). They will come with all these restrictions and what not when you apply for your way leave, it's all normally stipulated on there.

Going against and/or in the road is mostly against rules, because they are scared of the ground sinking due to not being properly and correctly compacted (and thus damaging the road). It's a risk that they generally are not prepared to take. Therefore, they just specify that you stay far away from the roads.

You can't even dig up a road to just cross it, you have to bore through underneath it.
 
eddief1 said:
Agreed that the largest MONTHLY cost is backhaul, and also agree that adding neighbouring areas does not increase said backhaul costs, but we not talking about backhaul here, that is the easy part (you have DFA), we talking trenching and physical work to drop fibre off at each house (capital) and it does not matter which way you slice it, the denser the better in that regard. You not exactly going to trench say 5KM worth of road at a cost of approx 2Mil for 10 clients
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Well the real question here is why does nobody want to use the DFA pipe. It appears every provider is using its own infrastructure.

eddief1 said:
You said it "going for areas that can easily be connected" hence cheaper to connect, hence less subscribers required for decent ROI so splitting it say 3 ways still makes sense.
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Not if density matters at all. Something doesn't quite jel here. Vumatel claims to go by subscriber numbers yet they still pick some areas over others and then roll out in stages. I see 123Net also now has this strategy putting some areas above others.

eddief1 said:
Disagree, just because you the only provider does not guarantee a faster return, it really all depends how much you have to fork out to drop fibre into the houses for that specific area. MTN, well they got the luxury (and money) to take on risk, the smaller guys don't.
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And there I partly agree. Backhaul costs are huge so most will see a benefit to rolling out in areas that are already connected. I still maintain though that ROI will be faster in areas where you're not contending with other providers. It will be interesting to see 20 years from now who was correct.
 
LOL - good luck with the municipality. They will have a hissy fit. At best, you will need to be on the other side of the tree, more than likely rather against the property's fence (there where all the utilities also lies). They will come with all these restrictions and what not when you apply for your way leave, it's all normally stipulated on there.
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Ageed, generally that is the norm, however if it is a community project it has some plus's, IE the community can put pressure on the municipality and in turn the community (or the people doing the fibre) can take responsibility to "look after the fibre", so when municipality works on curbs someone just has to be there to advise.

Going against and/or in the road is mostly against rules, because they are scared of the ground sinking due to not being properly and correctly compacted (and thus damaging the road). It's a risk that they generally are not prepared to take. Therefore, they just specify that you stay far away from the roads.

You can't even dig up a road to just cross it, you have to bore through underneath it.
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You cutting a 10mm slot where the curb meets the verge (not on the tar) and inserting a 10mm duct, no risk of sinking because you not going deeper than the curb, it's a tiny slot, not trench, filling with concrete, it will actually be stronger...the risk to the municipality is 100 times greater when 50 guys pull in there with pick's and shovels ripping up driveways and damaging municipal water & elec.

Anyway, I have seen them deploy both ways, manual digging spade width trench and when they slot cut. Needless to say the latter is a no brainer when you want to deploy fast, no mess, cheap fibre...in some cases you can afford to redo the job 3 times and it will still be cheaper than digging and the reinstatement cost associated with crossing driveways, removing trees, etc...remember i am not advising this for the core, only the drop fibre down the streets and I am only advising this because you will have to keep your costs down to make it work.
 
Well the real question here is why does nobody want to use the DFA pipe. It appears every provider is using its own infrastructure.
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They will use DFA from secunda to Teraco or the nearest POP. However, i stand corrected but with DFA you rent fibre pairs, this unfortunately is not suited to FTTH deployments, but will be suitable to connect different POP's. So someone will still have to build the last bit to the houses.


And there I partly agree. Backhaul costs are huge so most will see a benefit to rolling out in areas that are already connected. I still maintain though that ROI will be faster in areas where you're not contending with other providers. It will be interesting to see 20 years from now who was correct.
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It's possible for sure, only way to know for certain is to work it out unfortunately. In 20 years the whole market would be consolidated and many smaller guys snapped up by the big boys so we will never know :-)
 
The way people in Secunda drive, it is safer (and will be cheaper eventually) to just dig the trenches. Here the traffic lights start to shake from fear once the weekends start.
 
I heard from someone that Telkom is busy getting things ready to bring us fibre. I do not know when this is going to happen.
 
A sales consultant at the telkom shop told me the same. Holding thumbs :) but sceptic though
 
Well you get more out of them then I do. I have no doubt that uselesskom is getting ready to bring us fibre, but it will most probably be the same coverage area as their VDSL, plus them getting ready now means by 2100 we could potentially have fibre. For now though I will keep harassing 123net on their FB page with subtle reminders of Secunda =P. I remain hopeful that we will get fibre from someone before I am too old to actually use it.....

Edit: Just checked their website for coverage, seems like they really are planing it. If you click on your address on the map there is a option in the right-hand bottom corner that says "deals that could be coming to your area soon" and you can show your interest there. Ahhh the fibre dream. Also the currently available VDSL up to 4meg made me giggle..... Now if we could just get a date out of them it would be super nice.
 
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Henry.de.kock said:
Well you get more out of them then I do. I have no doubt that uselesskom is getting ready to bring us fibre, but it will most probably be the same coverage area as their VDSL, plus them getting ready now means by 2100 we could potentially have fibre. For now though I will keep harassing 123net on their FB page with subtle reminders of Secunda =P. I remain hopeful that we will get fibre from someone before I am too old to actually use it.....

Edit: Just checked their website for coverage, seems like they really are planing it. If you click on your address on the map there is a option in the right-hand bottom corner that says "deals that could be coming to your area soon" and you can show your interest there. Ahhh the fibre dream. Also the currently available VDSL up to 4meg made me giggle..... Now if we could just get a date out of them it would be super nice.
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How do you click on the map, could you link me please
 
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