South Africa's telecoms infrastructure is a reflection on all other aspects of the country: some areas boast world-class fibre connectivity, while many outlying areas are completely underdeveloped. One company is changing this status quo, however, using best-of-breed carrier-class products to roll out a world-class wireless network to remote areas as well as urban centres.
Since initiating the rollout of its countrywide network in 2008, Skywire Technologies has invested extensively in last mile and backhaul infrastructure and has deployed both MikroTik and Radwin products to ensure the quality of its network. Mondi Hattingh, co-executive director at Skywire, explains that while the MikroTek products were adequate as a starting point, the company's focus on the highest levels of quality necessitated the move to the Radwin range of radios.
"We came to realise that we couldn't do what we wanted to do in terms of ensuring uptime and quality for our clients without using the very best technology, and that meant we needed to deploy our backbone links on the Radwin products," Hattingh says. "We therefore upgraded our backbone using the Radwin 2000 and 5000 Series."
The choice of the Radwin products was an easy one, he adds, because of the guarantees provided by the brand. "Radwin products allow for guaranteed throughputs, which is very important to us as we can then pass the quality assurance on to our clients. This allows us to optimise the SLA we offer to our customers. At the moment, we guarantee 99.995% uptime, which equates to 3.71 hours a month - maximum - of downtime. The equipment can actually offer much better uptime, but a network's quality is not reliant on the equipment alone, so we safely ensure that our SLAs are realistic with this promise."
Radwin products are classified as carrier-class, meaning they have been tried and tested in the wireless industry, and have proven that they conform to carrier-class reliability standards, unprecedented throughput and excellent interference avoidance techniques. "Having the title of a carrier-class product means these devices are extremely reliable, well tested and proven in their capabilities for not only maximum uptime, but fast, automatic fault recovery as well. Carrier-class devices try to conform to the five nines availability standard, which means all carrier-class products are designed to give 99.999% uptime in most situations," explains Miro Distribution's Izelle Vermeulen.
The deployment of these products and its network, and the resultant high service levels offered by Skywire to its clients, would not have been possible without an effective partnership with the company's distributor of choice, Miro Distribution. One of South Africa's leading distributors of wireless, networking, VOIP and IP video products, Miro supplies only best-of-breed products and offers exceptional after-sales service and technical support.
"Miro has the experience and proven track record of supplying powerful, flexible and scalable solutions for our requirements," says Hattingh. "With their expert skills and a focus on supplying only the best products, together with the support and training they offer, Miro is the ideal partner for us."
This is reflected in the fact that Skywire is one of Miro's largest clients - offering further testimony to the scope of the company's network. "Through our strong geographic presence throughout South Africa, we can offer Skywire access to the right products when they need it, and where they need it," says Vermeulen, Skywire's account manager at Miro Distribution. "Because we partner with our customers, the quality of Skywire's infrastructure is just as important to us as it is to them, and we look forward to watching this network grow even further."
Contact details:
Johan Botha
National Sales Manager
(086) 72 72 606
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