For many years SA businesses have relied on limited-speed leased lines for their wide area communication, but this is changing as fixed-line and mobile operators bury fibre cables in the ground or mount them overhead. <\/p>\n
Leased lines are based on copper cable and their maximum speed is limited to multiples of 2 megabits per second, says Elia Tsouros, sales director at Verizon Business SA. <\/p>\n
He says the problem is that a bottleneck occurs in the transmission of data at the point where a 1 gigabit per second Ethernet-based local area network connects to a 2 megabit per second external leased line. <\/p>\n
“It is also more complex when interconnecting two different technologies.” <\/p>\n
Metro Ethernet, the technology used to carry communication traffic across fibre, allows companies to connect to the internet, to customers and between branches at 1 gigabit per second. It means companies will be able to enjoy the same speeds on their wide area networks as they currently experience on their local area networks, says Tsouros. <\/p>\n
As Ethernet runs on both the external and internal network, it allows straight-through processing on the same technology and there are no multiple points of potential failure, he says. <\/p>\n
The mobile networks are deploying fibre to build their own transmission networks to carry cellular voice and data traffic between masts, instead of relying on Telkom’s infrastructure as they have in the past. This will allow them to offer dedicated and shared high speed capacity to companies, says Tsouros. <\/p>\n
“The operators are all creating fibre rings around the cities.” <\/p>\n
Neotel has built international fibre links, a national fibre infrastructure and fibre to the kerb in nine metropolitan areas and has identified nine other areas for future development. <\/p>\n
Stefano Mattiello, executive head of enterprise group at the company, says this has involved about 14000 kilometres of fibre ducts containing 72 individual fibre strands. Each strand of a fibre cable transmits data at the speed of light — 300000 kilometres per second — allowing for huge throughput capacity. <\/p>\n
“We will build fibre to the kerb wherever there is a high density of businesses,” he says. <\/p>\n
The company is connecting business customers to its network at up to 1 gigabit per second over fibre, but the technology allows speeds of up to 120Gbps without changing anything. <\/p>\n
“This is true broadband, but the demand is not there yet for this kind of speed.” <\/p>\n
Neotel has started deploying CDMA wireless technology to connect residential customers to its backbone network without having to dig up roads. It also has a WiMAX licence and spectrum for connecting businesses to its fibre backbone network wirelessly to provide high speed voice and internet connectivity at speeds up to 2 megabits per second. <\/p>\n
“We will be offering entry level services at a lower cost.” <\/p>\n
The company expects to launch commercial WiMAX services to businesses and consumers later this year. With WiMAX it is possible to provide dedicated bandwidth with guaranteed throughput speeds. <\/p>\n
“We can also offer a shared service with WiMAX at a lower cost.” <\/p>\n
WBS, the owner of iBurst, is scheduled to launch a WiMAX service in July or August in high-density business areas in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. <\/p>\n
“We will be targeting the service at small and medium businesses,” says CEO Alan Knott Craig junior. <\/p>\n
He says initially the company will offer guaranteed minimum speeds of 128, 256 and 512 megabits per second for different WiMAX service options, with peak speeds up to 2 megabits per second. <\/p>\n
The 2010 World Cup is the catalyst that is spurring telecommunication operators and service providers to gear up their infrastructure, bandwidth capacity and services. <\/p>\n
“Nothing else could provide the impetus to transform telecommunications in this country as this event is doing ,” says Tim Courtenay, MD of the telecoms division at Atio. <\/p>\n
He says it will lay the foundation for a modern communications infrastructure that will boost the telecommunications industry and take the country forward. <\/p>\n
A huge amount of bandwidth capacity will be needed for the World Cup to support TV broadcast, video downloads and mobile versions of these services, which will be promoted with major marketing campaigns, says Courtenay. <\/p>\n
New mobile handsets will also be needed to support TV and video downloads. <\/p>\n
“This will be the first World Cup event to be viewed on mobile video,” he says. <\/p>\n
Plenty of bandwidth will also be needed to support media coverage, the Fifa organising committee and entourage and all those visiting this country for the even, says Courtenay. <\/p>\n
“Companies will enjoy the same speeds on wide area networks as on their local area networks” <\/p>\n