Copperbelt Energy Corporation plc (CEC) today commissioned a $8.9 million (R75.65 million) million Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) over Fibre network in Zambia, consolidating its position in Zambia's privatised mining space.
CEC is a private electric power transmission and distribution company in Zambia's copperbelt. The company purchases electricity from state utility, Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation Limited for resale to mining companies. It also has a telecommunication network which comprises an extensive analogue telecommunication system that mirrors the power network by connecting all the company's substations. The system facilitates the transmission of signals for the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, primary asset protection signalling, remote metering, voice communication and data transfer.
CEC awarded Intrinsic Technologies a fibre communications project. Intrinsic, in turn, subcontracted the SDH potion to Siemens Telecommunications, who supplied the Transport & Access Network equipment.
The project comprised the supply, installation, testing and commissioning of a fibre cable network and inter-substation SDH communications at all of CEC's substations, throughout the Copperbelt. CEC will use the fibre communications network for its own communications requirements.
Thoko Mokgosi, the Managing Director of Fixed Networks at Siemens Telecommunications, said: ''The surge in telecommunications in Southern Africa has created major opportunities for Siemens and now represents about 70% of turnover, which came in at R8.8 billion in 2002. We received orders of R2.08 billion from the Southern African Development Community in this period and the target is to have 25% of total turnover coming from SADC countries by 2005.''
Infrastructure breakdown
Siemens deployed its multi-service Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) technology and management platform to implement CEC's network. The network's core is a backbone network interconnecting several regional sub networks, which is made up of six rings, with the backbone ring operating at 622Mb/s and all other sub-net rings operating at 155Mb/s.
The network has the ability to consolidate and accommodate an increased traffic capacity demand, while a network management solution provides a comprehensive set of features and functionality through its fault, configuration and performance management abilities.
The SDH protocol is based on time-division multiplexing (TDM) principals, ensuring there is a constant stream of data over the fibre network. With evolution in the SDH technology the ability to transport, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and Internet Protocol (IP) is now a reality. Functionality and features include the efficient use of fibre infrastructure, centralised management for cost-effective network operations and service quality and availability through speedy protection mechanisms. Operators in Southern Africa using Siemens SDH solutions are fixed, mobile and private in South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Swaziland. CEC's network also features the point-to-point multipoint feature of the FMX, which enables the SCADA system to communicate with remote stations that are distributed throughout the corporation's network. The FMX is a flexible multiplexer that can be used to provide various subscriber interfaces for services such as Plain Old Telephony Service (POTS), ISDN, analog and digital leased line services. The flexibility of the FMX allows the fibre network to efficiently transmit data amongst terminals connected to the various subscriber interfaces.
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