Teba Savings Fund, the "paymaster" for more than 250 000 gold and platinum mine employees, is partnering with Dimension Data to implement a R2.7 million Cisco WAN backbone.
This will equip the company with the technologies it requires to provide a full range of banking facilities across South Africa and neighbouring countries.
Currently in the process of applying for a banking license, Teba Savings Fund operates central offices in the Fochville, Randfontein, Carletonville, Stilfontein, Welkom, Rustenburg, Northam, Evander and Virginia mining fields.
In addition, through sister company, TEBA Limited, TSF administers savings accounts held by mining employees, ex-mining employees (retired, retrenched, disabled) and held by dependants of mining employees. This allows for the transfer of money from the mine to the employee`s rural residential area. TEBA has over 40 outlets, including outlets in Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland.
Jenny Hoffmann, MD at Teba Savings Fund, says the company`s existing Securicor network infrastructure, which has been running for some five years, has outgrown its usefulness. "The company is moving into a real time financial transaction environment thereby necessitating advanced technologies to meet our customer service requirements."
She adds that as the Fund operates in extremely remote locations where there are no phone lines, the communication channels involve not only local and wide area networks, but also VSAT technology to link satellite operations to far-flung areas of Africa.
"We are currently implementing VSAT technology, which entails linking the backbone infrastructure to the Hartbeeshoek Earth Station that provides the essential satellite feed," says Hannes Potgieter, IT manager at TSF.
He adds that TSF`s decision to go with Dimension Data was based on their expertise and price competitiveness.
"Our decision was also based on the stability and size of Dimension Data and rapid network response times offered. As a Gold Partner it also has direct ties into Cisco, thus dramatically reducing the time it takes to address problem areas.
"Following a detailed network design, the first pilot site was rolled out, linking a regional office to the Pretoria headquarters via a leased Diginet line. This was successfully completed and backed up by an ISDN line," says Potgieter.
Implementation of the Teba Savings Fund Cisco WAN was completed in six weeks and within budget. Looking further into the future, Teba Savings Fund intends to deploy other methods of communication, as they become available - GSM, microwave or any other new technologies - to provide more than one route of communication in the event of satellite failure to the remote locations.
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