Construction of five new switching centres for the City of Cape Town are scheduled to be completed in July, a major milestone in the rollout of its R110 million fibre-optic ring, says the contractor.
According to Larry Maclean, project manager at Bridging Technologies Cape, the switching centres will be located at Keller House, Gallows Hill, in central Cape Town; and Parow Civic Centre, Bellville Civic Centre, and Athlone Stadium.
Bridging Technologies Cape will be paid around R40 million by the City of Cape Town to either construct from new, or refurbish some of the existing facilities.
The company will also install some of the cabling in these centres, as well as hardware, raised floors, cooling plants and the other machinery needed to run a switching centre. The centres will range in size from 200 to 300 square meters.
“Once the switching centres are running, they will be linked into the fibre-optic ring that is currently being laid around Cape Town,” Maclean says.
Revised costs
Four years ago, the City of Cape Town mooted a project to build a fibre-optic ring to link up all its public facilities from municipal offices to libraries on one network. The aim was also to allow other potential users to buy capacity when needed. Tenders were awarded in October last year and laying of the cable is under way in various parts of the city.
The value of the tenders awarded last year was budgeted at R355 million, but City of Cape Town head of telecommunications Leon van Wyk says this includes operational costs that are not factored into the current financial year that ends in June.
“Currently, the R110 million is only related to capital expenditure and the operational costs are constantly being revised,” he says.
Van Wyk says the switching centres will also allow third parties to rent their own dark fibre, rack space, and 1Gb and 100Mb circuits from the city to create their own private networks.
“Currently, we are laying the northern loop of the fibre ring that will connect some 54 municipal buildings and a southern ring will be constructed next year,” he says.
Share
