2010 bandwidth to materialise

By Paul Vecchiatto for Telkom
Johannesburg, 14 Aug 2008

SA currently does not have enough bandwidth to meet the 2010 guarantees. However, that should change, as Telkom is due to increase capacity on its undersea cables, says Rosey Sekese, Department of Communications deputy director-general for ICT infrastructure.

Sekese addressed yesterday's briefing on the progress being made in getting the country ready for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

She said the guarantees consisted of two parts: to ensure broadcast signals could be transmitted from the stadiums to the international broadcast centre, located at Nasrec, in Johannesburg; and then be transmitted out of the country to the rest of the world.

Sekese is confident Telkom would have the required increased capacity installed by the Confederations Cup, scheduled for next year, and that broadcast signals would be sent via Telkom's SAT-3 cable, on the West Coast, and its South African Far East Cable that runs out of Durban.

National signal distributor Sentech would have a second teleport built at Nasrec to increase satellite transmissions. Sekese also said Telkom would make its own satellite facilities available.

"Our role, as government, is to guarantee that the infrastructure will be in place, and this is what we are doing. How the broadcasters secure bandwidth and what they pay for it is a commercial arrangement with which we don't have anything to do," Sekese said.

No mention was made of government's new Broadband Infraco, which is to lay an African West Coast cable, scheduled for operation in time for the World Cup. There was also no comment about the privately-funded East Coast cable, called Seacom.

A Seacom spokesman says his company has been in negotiations with a number of international broadcasters.

"Telkom will be the primary link between the stadiums and the international broadcast centre; however, there is no monopoly on getting the signal out of the country. We are on track to be operational by June 2009," he notes.

Domestic picture

In the meantime, government is on the verge of signing formal contracts with both Telkom and Sentech, to provide the domestic telecommunications infrastructure for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

This is according to deputy finance minister Jabu Moleketi, who spoke at the same briefing yesterday.

Under the agreement with soccer's world governing body, Fifa, the South African government has promised to deliver the 2010 World Cup successfully and, in turn, has partnered - in principle - with key stakeholders, like the telecoms companies.

According to Moleketi, government "has a number of contracts in place" to ensure successful ICT delivery to the event, and the Sentech contract is "ready for signing".

He says the Telkom contract is being drafted.

The contracts don't carry significant monetary value as, Sekese explained, Telkom, for example, is in the process of upgrading its core infrastructure anyway.

"We [government] are only providing fibre optic [connections] from the nearest Telkom exchanges to the stadia," she said.

While Telkom is responsible for the entire national backbone for 2010, including connectivity between stadiums and the international broadcasting centre, in Johannesburg, Sentech will be responsible for the satellite backup to Telkom's fibre optic solutions.

Moleketi said the establishment of a dedicated health Web site for 2010 has been completed and should go public during September.

"This Web site will provide information on health preparations, health promotion information, travel medicine and will be a platform for applications by health volunteers," he said.

"It is envisaged that this site will continue post-2010 as an emergency medical services and disaster management-focused site."