Durban gets true broadband

A taste of true broadband access speeds was experienced yesterday when the Tertiary Education Network (Tenet) downloaded the first test data over its network, connecting the Seacom cable with the Durban University of Technology (DUT).

At 4.32pm, on Thursday, packets of data at a speed of 10Gb/s, or one full circuit, sped down the Seacom East African cable onto the 160km Dark Fibre Africa (DFA)-built cable to DUT. The packets of information contained data that tests the veracity of the links.

Illustrating how fast this is, it is the equivalent of downloading a full-length DVD movie in 3.5 seconds.

No more incumbents

Tenet CTO Andrew Alston says this is the first time in SA that data has been passed between this country and Europe, with none of the telecommunications incumbent's involvement.

“In the past, we have always had one of the incumbents being involved one way or another on fibre-optic. No more,” he says.

Alston says the speeds experienced so far have been 50 times the capacity of anything that Tenet has on its national network that supplies connectivity to the academic institutions. He says testing of the link will continue for sometime and that it will eventually be incorporated into Tenet's national backbone network around 1 December.

Tenet is a non-profit organisation that runs a national research and education network of more than 100 academic sites within SA.

DUT vice-chancellor Roy du Pre says the difference the new link makes is “like night versus day”.

“Our students and staff will be able to make use of this link immediately. The importance of this to our research is immeasurable. Our researchers will be able to keep in constant contact with their colleagues and peers overseas, be able to download the latest data, research journals and other information. Until now, they had to go to the library and find the book they were looking for and often it would be out of date,” Du Pre says.

All welcome

DFA CEO Gustav Smit says the link between Mtunzini and Durban is based on open access principles, which means that any licensed provider can use it.

“Tenet has taken up 1% of the physical capacity on the link between Mtunzini and Durban. The remainder is available to any licensed service provider, of which a number are currently in negotiation with DFA,” he says.

Smit says the infrastructure between Mtunzini and Umhlanga can accommodate up to 1 008 fibre strands. At Umhlanga, it interconnects with the DFA metro infrastructure (currently 120km and expanding), which can accommodate 2 016 fibre strands. There are more than 250 access points (manholes) in the Ethekweni metro area.

He says the total DFA investment in that province to date is approximately R140 million. DFA is also busy constructing infrastructure from Mtunzini to Gauteng that should be completed in the first quarter of 2010. Total investment is approximately R249 million.

Broadband revolution

“The link for Tenet was the fastest roll-out of an infrastructure network in the history of SA fibre deployment,” says DFA sales and marketing executive Malcolm Kirby, adding that it was completed within two months.

Kirby says DFA's speed and its use of sophisticated trenching equipment enabled it to roll out the link at more than two kilometres per day per team.

“With the launch of Seacom's undersea cable, bandwidth supply will be increased significantly. We are anticipating a bandwidth revolution. Consumers can look forward to substantially faster and cheaper Internet connectivity in the near future,” says Kirby.

DFA plans to complete its fibre network connecting Mtunzini and Johannesburg by early 2010.

“We decided to take the long route and not merely follow the N3, to ensure that major towns such as Piet Retief, Ermelo, Richards Bay and Vryheid are covered by our network, thus also providing them access to international gateways and increased bandwidth,” says Kirby.

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