Backhaul bandwidth capacity is often a forgotten aspect of providing a reliable broadband service with good service levels. Growing transmission needs associated with a growing broadband user base and higher speeds can also be a costly affair if a provider relies on a third party to provide their backhaul bandwidth needs.<\/p>\n
Vodacom, MTN and Cell C have traditionally relied on Telkom for all their transmission needs, but the high costs associated with these transmission links and the long waiting period to get new links meant that Vodacom and MTN decided to build their own fibre networks to alleviate some it their reliance on Telkom.<\/p>\n
MTN recently announced that it has completed 135km of its Gauteng Metro Fibre network, and that the company was planning to light up this network in September this year. This network is expected to provide MTN with significantly more bandwidth capacity in the Gauteng region and enable the company to provide a much wider range of services to corporate customers. <\/p>\n
Vodacom is even further down the road in providing its own transmission capacity in the larger cities. Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys said that 7 of the company’s 11 planned fibre rings were already operational, and that the four remaining fibre rings would be completed and operational by July this year. These fibre networks are situated in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein. This national fibre network will go a long way to reduce national bandwidth costs and give Vodacom and MTN the ability to operate their own national fibre networks. <\/p>\n International bandwidth remains a bottleneck when it comes to broadband provisioning, but this bottleneck should not be there for long as numerous new undersea cable systems are set to become operational within the next two years. <\/p>\n It is well known that SEACOM will provide far cheaper international bandwidth to South Africans from mid 2009, with the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) and the West African Cable System (WACS) to follow in late 2010 and early 2011 respectively.<\/p>\n Uys said that while Vodacom would purchase capacity on both EASSy and SEACOM, its future bandwidth needs would most likely be served through West Coast submarine cables such as SAT-3 and WACS. The East African cables are however very valuable to provide redundancy, Uys pointed out.<\/p>\n The WACS agreement, which involves most of the major telecoms players in South Africa including Telkom, Vodacom, MTN, Neotel and Infraco, will be signed at Vodaworld today.<\/p>\n
National and international fibre<\/strong>
On a more national scale Neotel, MTN and Vodacom have partnered to build a 5000km national fibre network. The first leg of this network, which will connect Johannesburg and Durban, will be operational later this year.<\/p>\n