Academic network at sensitive stage

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

Cape Town, 14 Jul 2009

A decision will be made this week whether Telkom or Neotel will win the multimillion-rand South African National Research Network (Sanren) tender.

Negotiations between the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research's (CSIR's) Meraka Institute and Telkom and Neotel are at a sensitive stage, with best and final offers currently being considered.

Because of this, the actual budget is not being disclosed, but ITWeb has learnt that, depending on final system configuration, the amount to be spent on the network could be between R100 million and R250 million.

Sanren will deliver high-speed, unrestricted and uncapped broadband capacity to higher education institutions.

It is a CSIR project and is being funded by the Department of Science and Technology to connect all major research and higher education institutions on a 10Gbps network.

This would give them access to the connectivity and computing resources they need to conduct innovation and research.

Telkom and Neotel are the only two fully licensed telecommunications operators that have the ability and size to handle a system of this magnitude.

Eventually, Sanren will form a three-way link between Durban, Gauteng and Cape Town. It will provide high-speed international links via the east coast undersea cable, Seacom, and the eventually the West African Cable System that should land by the end of 2011.

CSIR consultant Geoff Daniell says Sanren's prime objective is to reduce the cost of broadband connectivity for the academic institutions.

“The global average is $4 per megabyte per month, while in SA it is R18 000 to R20 000. That is totally unsustainable for academic and research institutions. We often ask: 'What would you do with unrestricted broadband and computing capacity?' and you would be surprised at the number of ideas the institutions have that they cannot explore because of those restrictions.”

Daniell says the network is also essential to prove that SA can host the Square Kilometre Array - the radio telescope that the country is bidding for in competition with Australia.

He says the CSIR is playing its cards close to the chest during the negotiations stage, as the project is deemed to be of such national importance that “no hint of corruption or unfair practices can be allowed to taint the process”.

Sanren's first phase is due to be completed by March next year and parts of that are already in place. Those include a 10Gbps link between the CSIR's Pretoria campus and institutions in Johannesburg mainly used for data transfer by the astronomy departments and the earth observation studies currently being conducted. This link terminates at Internet Solutions, because of its close proximity to the Johannesburg Internet Exchange.

“We have said that this will be unrestricted. We [Sanren] only supply the network and for academic purposes that is an essential requirement. If institutions decide they want to put some kind of gateway or firewalls on their side of the network, then that is their business,” Daniell says.

An academic network of this nature has been mooted within government, industrial and scientific circles for almost 20 years. However, it was stalled due to the immaturity of the technology, and the lack of funding and political will.

“We have now developed a business plan that makes this network sustainable well into the future,” Daniell notes.