SA could require up to four times more bandwidth than it currently has access to in order to successfully host the World Cup in three years.
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck estimates SA's bandwidth needs at least two terabits a second by the time 2010 rolls around, or four times current capacity, in order to meet the demands of the World Cup and internal growth. "There is a huge appetite for high-speed connectivity in business and among consumers.
"The undersea cable is a key source of our bandwidth," he says, discounting satellite as a viable alternative source of bandwidth due to its price and latency. BMI-TechKnowledge senior telecommunications analyst Richard Hurst says SA may have to push some bandwidth over satellite.
Choked capacity
For the 2006 event, held in Germany, broadcasting alone accounted for 480GB of data each second. "I can see local bandwidth being throttled for 2010," Goldstuck says. The current month-end phenomenon of slower bandwidth, as caps are used up, is likely to be a key feature for the four-week duration of the tournament, he adds.
The international broadcast centre in Munich had 25 cameras running for four weeks, transmitting images through 24 fibre optic lines provided by Deutsche Telekom, while the converged network Avaya built for FIFA handled more than 21 trillion bytes of voice and data traffic.
SA will have access to a total of 890Gbps once the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (Eassy) cable is up and running. This includes full capacity of both the South Atlantic 3 (SAT-3) and eastern South Africa Far East cables.
However, this will be insufficient for internal needs by 2009. Should pricing remain at current levels, demand on the cables is expected to increase fourfold. Halving of prices would see demand increasing tenfold, Goldstuck says. "Current demand is artificially held back by excessive pricing."
Hurst estimates the World Cup alone will require six times the capacity of the SAT-3 cable - or 720Gbps. SA is likely to need between 1.2Tbps and 2Tbps. "The problem is Eassy; it's not as easy as governments are trying to make out."
However, Hurst is confident that if Eassy does not get off the ground, international companies like Neotel shareholder VSNL have a solid enough business case to run their own cable.
Already worried
FIFA has already expressed concerns that SA may not be up to the challenge of meeting IT infrastructure needs. The governing body is reported as saying, while it seeks to reuse much of the technology infrastructure from Germany, SA's lack of bandwidth may hamper running of the event.
Peter Meyer, FIFA IT head, said SA's lack of bandwidth might make it hard to create a similar infrastructure to that in Germany. "I was in SA a few weeks ago and the connectivity, especially when contacting the rest of the world, is quite thin," Meyer is reported to have said.
"I think it is fair to say that in 2010 everything has to be treated as mission-critical and consistency is a non-negotiable," says Gert Schoonbee, GM for business development and strategy at T-Systems SA, a Deutsche Telekom subsidiary. T-Systems provided 75% of the ICT infrastructure for 2006 and is hoping to supply infrastructure for the SA event.
MyADSL founder Rudolph Muller believes SA will be able to deliver on the requirements for 2010 despite the challenges. "However, the road to achieve this will be rocky and it may include international intervention and/or pressure from FIFA to achieve the goals," he says.
Sentech previously said FIFA's ICT guarantees include providing redundant (dual route), secure, high-speed, high-availability links between venues and providing international broadcast centre and international gateways.
Unless visitors are well connected through world-class services, SA will be seen as just another developing nation in Africa, Muller adds.
The Department of Communications did not immediately respond to requests for comment or information.
[Additional reporting by Bandile Sikwane]
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