The core of the Johannesburg Broadband Network Project - an initiative to connect the City of Johannesburg - is almost complete, and is anticipated to be switched on before the end of the year.
So said Andy Martin, head of customer service, industry and government at Ericsson, during a recent workshop the company hosted on the socio-economic impacts of improving broadband speeds.
“We are running about three months ahead of schedule,” he said. “Upon completion, the network will cover all the eight regions in Johannesburg, providing broadband technologies to the city offices.
“The network will enable the transport of any kind of data, video and voice - including dark fibre, lit fibre, Internet and mobile backhaul - and will even allow for the future implementation of IPTV services,” he said.
Martin noted that some 300km of fibre-optic cable has already been laid in the core network from the south of Soweto to Midrand.
He also revealed the project is being implemented through BWired, an Ericsson initiative formed specifically for the billon-rand project.
The City of Johannesburg's economic department says the city embarked on the project after realising that bandwidth is not a finite resource like oil, and over time, total bandwidth will grow, and the price of bandwidth will fall.
“Driven by applications and content, broadband access bandwidth continues to grow exponentially around the world. Access bandwidth per customer needs to increase continually. Retail competition will increasingly not be on the price of bandwidth, but on services delivered over that bandwidth,” the department says in a statement.
The city also acknowledges that bandwidth costs in SA are among the highest in the world; for example, ADSL is more than nine times more expensive than in the cheapest country.
Musa Nkosi, CEO of BWired, says: “We believe that the network will signify a momentous development for this city, and will go a long way in bridging the digital divide.”
According to Lars Linden, head of Ericsson in sub-Saharan Africa: “Broadband services are recognised as one of the most critical pillars in the development and improvement of society. This project will significantly change the way the citizens of Johannesburg live and do business.”
The optical network is based on Ericsson's multi-protocol label switching solution, which Ericsson says provides increased flexibility and network scalability for the city, while ensuring that the high requirements necessary for data transport are met.
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