After a controversial battle with the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) early last year, emerging telecoms provider Dabba is back at Orange Farm, determined to provide affordable connectivity to rural SA.
This is a second attempt to provide telecommunication technology in this area, after ICASA ripped out Dabba's equipment early last year. It followed accusations that the equipment had not been approved by the authority and that it was interfering with the frequencies of licensed operators.
Now Dabba will attempt to establish its free technology in the area again. Over the past two days, 40 “Mesh Potato” units have been installed in Extension Two, a small township neighbourhood in Orange Farm; with plans to rollout 200 units in the area over the coming weeks.
The Mesh Potato is a device that provides low-cost telephony and Internet in areas where alternative access either doesn't exist or is too expensive. It is a convergence of a low-cost wireless access point (AP), capable of running a mesh networking protocol, with an Analogue Telephony Adapter.
Wireless APs, such as the Meraki or OpenMesh APs, are rapidly gaining in popularity due to their low-cost, relative robustness, and ease of installation. The Mesh Potato adds the ability to plug an ordinary telephone into a device like an OpenMesh AP.
Growing telcos
The initiative is made up of various partners, primary of which is Dabba, which has backing from the Shuttleworth Foundation and Cisco networks. The deployment forms part of the Village Telco initiative, which seeks to deliver scalable, standards-based, wireless, do-it-yourself, telephone company toolkit to rural SA.
However, the current rollout is commercial in that each of the residents who have received the device has also received telephones capable of calls to fixed and mobile networks.
Lissoos explains that the rates are very competitive in that all on-net calls are free, while calls to GSM networks will be charged at approximately R1 per minute and about 50c to Telkom lines.
He predicts that, upon entry to market, the device may cost in the region of R500, but this figure may be subject to the volume of a particular order.
Within two to three weeks, the network will be opened for Internet connectivity as well, explains Lissoos. He notes that the project is aimed at growing low-cost telecommunications companies in the outlying areas of the country.
Because the technology operates in unlicensed spectrum, a potential telco could operate without a licence, with as little as 20 units, notes Lissoos.
He adds that, as in the past, Dabba has followed procedure in terms of obtaining approval from ICASA. The authority was slammed for its actions last year, which were described as heavy-handed and unnecessary.
Lissoos notes that this time around ICASA may have more of an argument if it attempts to remove the equipment, because the equipment approvals have not yet been issued and are still in the administrative process.
Share