2010: zero tolerance for failure

By Damaria Senne, ITWeb senior journalist

Johannesburg, 22 Sept 2006

FIFA requirements are stringent and there would be zero tolerance for technical failures that could result in interrupted transmissions of the 2010 soccer games, says Sentech CEO Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane.

The Department of Communications has given guarantees to FIFA for dual-route, secure, high-speed, high-availability links between venues, the international broadcast centre (IBC) and international gateways, she says.

The communication infrastructure architecture is designed so that if a fibre optic connection fails, there is an immediate uptake by satellite, says Mokone-Matabane. The department also guarantees the provision of data and voice communications to venues and surrounding areas, in hotels and facilities where the players reside, and to assist in setting up the IBC and media centre.

For 2010, the idea was to have the IBC and the media centres operating separately in host cities, Mokone-Matabane explains. However, during the 2006 tournament, in Germany, the two were put together, and the arrangement reportedly worked very well, she adds.

It is, therefore, still unclear as to whether the SA model will be adapted for the 2010 games, she says. A decision will be made following the post-mortem of the Germany games, she says.

Digital broadcast infrastructure

Mokone-Matabane says most of the 220 sites needed to broadcast digital terrestrial television (DTT) to 92% of SA's population are already in place and need only be upgraded to become fully digital.

The first phase, which is expected to take two years, involves the upgrading of the Sentech's broadcast network and duplicating the analogue network channels on a digital system.

Of the R280 million government allocation, to be paid out in three years, the first two tranches of this year's allocation were paid out to Sentech, says CFO Mohammed Siddique Cassim. Sentech has placed orders for the commencement of the upgrade, and a R4.5 million test site is complete in Nelspruit.

Mokone-Matabane says DTT test transmissions started in March 2006 from Sentech's main broadcast tower site in Brixton. She notes that while the International Telecommunications Union has set the deadline of June 2015 for digital switch-over, SA aims to migrate before this time.