Johannesburg, 24 May 2010
Plans are afoot to make Cape Town a wirelessly connected city, says Western Cape premier Helen Zille. This is on the back of the city lighting up the first circuit of its fibre optic network.
Speaking to ITWeb at the official opening of the Telkom/IEEE exhibition in the mother city yesterday, Zille said that IT was key to the Western Cape's economic future and, while success has been seen on the municipal side, the provincial plan is to update the systems currently in use.
“Last week, we lit up the first loop of the broadband network that connects about 50 municipal buildings. That system will not only save the municipality money, but it can resell its spare capacity much cheaper than Telkom does,” she said.
Cape Town's plans to roll out a R400 million fibre optic backbone was started almost five years ago when Zille was still mayor of the city. The idea was to save on the estimated R90 million the city was paying Telkom and the other major mobile network operators on its connectivity and telecommunications costs.
Initial cable laying has been aimed at connecting key municipal buildings and the installation of a CCTV system as part of the security arrangements for the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup.
The fibre optic network puts the city in direct competition with Telkom and other commercial telecommunications operators. However, they may lease capacity.
Telkom CEO Reuben September, who accompanied Zille to yesterday's function, indicated that his company was not overly concerned about the increase in competition from a non-traditional source such as a municipality.
“For Telkom competition is not just a matter of price. It is about quality of service and other factors. We believe that once our mobile service comes into effect later this year, we will bring true convergence to the South African consumer,” September said.
The IEEE International Conference on Communications is being hosted for the first time ever in Cape Town, until Thursday this week. Some 1 400 delegates from around the world are attending.
Share