Cheaper broadband
Internet service provider (ISP) MWeb is one of several companies likely to receive a licence allowing it to build its own network independently of Telkom. In anticipation, it has been running an extensive trial using a wireless technology called WiMax.
Consumers will soon be spoilt for choice in broadband. As many as half-a-dozen companies, many of them ISPs, could receive individual electronic communications network service licences from the Independent Communications Authority of SA. These licences will allow them to build telecom networks in competition with Telkom and other licensed infrastructure operators.
Several of them, including Dimension Data division Internet Solutions and retail consumer-focused ISP MWeb, are already building pilot wireless networks to test the feasibility of building their own infrastructure. Naspers-owned MWeb is running a huge test network with more than 750 consumers.
MWeb has built a pilot network comprising eight WiMax base stations. WiMax, which has been years in development, is being touted as an alternative to the digital subscriber line (DSL) access that fixed-line operators such as Telkom use to provide broadband services.
MWeb new business projects GM Eugene van der Westhuizen says the company is excited about the possibility of circumventing Telkom’s “last mile” of copper cables. The licence MWeb expects to receive will also allow it to provide its own backhaul links to connect its base stations. Telkom’s backhaul links are notoriously expensive. “Without our own backhaul, we wouldn’t have a business case,” Van der Westhuizen says. MWeb will still need Telkom (or rival Neotel) for long-distance bandwidth but connecting its own base stations in urban areas using microwave links will cut its costs.
MWeb has erected a WiMax base station in Soweto, an area poorly served by Telkom’s DSL service. The company says it will undercut Telkom’s prices for DSL. It will also offer bigger bandwidth caps and plans to use the network to provide voice telephony, too.
There have been challenges: the pilot network was built using the unregulated ISM band but interference from illegal wireless ISPs has seriously degraded the performance of its backhaul network. To overcome this it will need access to its own spectrum.
Another challenge has been getting access to high sites to build base stations. Most of the prime sites have already been taken by other operators and site owners are reluctant to allow additional antennas to be erected. Then there’s the challenge of getting approval from the likes of the Civil Aviation Authority and local municipalities. Approvals typically take months. Nevertheless, Van der Westhuizen is confident that WiMax will go a long way in overcoming the high prices and lack of capacity that have plagued broadband in SA and stunted its take-up.
MWeb has demonstrated that WiMax is a robust technology. Latency, or network lag, has been surprisingly good for a wireless service. It’s good enough to offer quality voice telephony. For the technically inclined, the test network has an average latency of 50 ms or better. WiMax signals can also be carried over great distances, especially where consumers have an antenna installed on their roofs. In one instance in Cape Town, a signal was successfully carried over a distance of 22km. Indoor antennas typically only operate optimally within 3km of a base station.
Though Van der Westhuizen concedes that WiMax will not replace fixed-line solutions, especially those that use high-speed fibre optics, the technology could ultimately provide broadband to consumers in areas not profitable for fixed-line operators. And any technology that will help bridge the yawning chasm between the connected and the unconnected in SA is surely a good thing.
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