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Pretoria first with powerline comms?

Carel Alberts
By Carel Alberts, ITWeb contributor
Johannesburg, 13 Jun 2003

The Tshwane Metro Government has far-reaching plans and projects under way, to offer broadband on its existing optical fibre backbone, as well as last mile comms to low-teledensity areas and post-graduate students, including cutting-edge power line (PLC) communications.

Charles Kuun, managing engineer at the city`s operational systems, says power line communications, although a first in this country, is only a sub-set of the total scope of his communications development brief.

"As regards PLC, we have tested two overseas companies` equipment, one for over a year now." Ascom, a Swiss company offering this technology, has the longer standing, while Innovatec, an Australian supplier, has come on board recently.

"They have different chipsets and different PLC philosophies, and we won`t be ready to submit a report to metro management until year-end," says Kuun.

The technology allows one to plug a modem into an electrical wall socket, connecting PC and telephone to it, and using the power line infrastructure to send and receive voice, data and video at high bandwidth.

Both last-mile and backbone services are aimed at the city`s developmental undertakings -economic as well as rural telecoms initiatives and post-graduate learning. Also, both look to the SNO as a possible future partner to help the government roll out services with legal backing. "This would help the SNO meet its commitments too," Kuun says.

The role of metros in the SNO

Metro governments` role in the SNO cannot be underestimated, Kuun adds, saying there are talks between Tshwane and Eskom Technology Services International, as well as a relationship with Eskom Enterprises and the already established SNO shareholders, Esi-Tel, Transtel and Nexus.

Kuun says the government went on its fact finding missions for this project to countries such as Austria, Switzerland and Germany, looking at plants offering PLC profitably.

The African dream

"This is an enormous and untapped field," says Kuun. He says Tshwane sent a letter to Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri in April to inform her of its plans and to lay the foundation for future legal provisioning of services.

"Should the dream come true, the Metro Telco, when given a licence or operating in conjunction with the SNO, can generate income comparable with the electrical generation income, which is close to R1.2bn pa," he says.

"The issue is how do we get a metropolitan telco licence."

Cost-effective

Cost-effective broadband applications are without question particularly suitable for low-teledensity and poor areas, as well as multimedia-dependent services like distance learning. On high-bandwidth next-generation broadband networks, video-on-demand streaming is possible, making this ideal for many rollout targets and economic imperatives in South Africa.

Tshwane`s backbone is planned to have transmission rates of 2Gbps, with throughput in smaller branches down to 64kbps.

"It is difficult to quantify the costs on this," says Kuun, "but we think we can upgrade the existing fibre and offer this for no more than R600 million to R700 million." Tshwane has optical fibre several thousands of kilometres long, if counted by adding the multiple core bundles within the available fibre.

It is currently used as essential equipment for the city`s electrical distribution-related comms. "For higher bandwidth, you simply replace the switches," he says.

The metro`s investigations into a connection with Tuks University is a last-mile project, getting students and researchers involved. But its most important eventual application will be in rural areas with low-teledensity, to help bridge the digital divide.

Broadband to the city`s businesses will attract more enterprise, and the taxes collected in that way will assist economic development, says Kuun.

In terms of other broadband last mile technologies, Tshwane is looking at the 802.11b standard (11mbps) and the metro wireless broadband standard, 802.16 (100mbps).

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