Telkom communications solution boosts higher education in SA

A communications solution designed and implemented by Telkom which was launched in Johannesburg this week, has boosted internetworking between higher education institutions in South Africa and abroad.

This is being done in terms of an agreement between Telkom and the Tertiary Education Network (Tenet) which represents 21 universities, 14 technikons, 10 national institutes and two consortia. Tenet takes over from its predecessor, Uninet in providing high speed internet connectivity. Uninet, which was run by the National Research Foundation (NRF), formally closes down at the end of this month.

Tenet is owned jointly by the South African Universities Vice Chancellors` Association and the Committee of Technikon Principals. The former director of Information Technology at the University of Cape Town, Dr Duncan Martin, has been appointed as CEO of this Section 21 company.

Technical experts from Telkom have collaborated with experts from higher education to design the solution. Using variable bit rate permanent virtual circuits over the Telkom public broadband network and a set of dedicated IP routers, Telkom has configured a customer-specific solution to route and transport information.

For each higher education site, Telkom has provided Internet access to and from networks worldwide via trunk circuits that connect to major international peering exchanges in the USA and UK.

Telkom`s Managing Executive of Sales and Marketing, Godfrey Ntoele, said that Telkom`s National Network Operations Centre (NNOC) in Centurion is monitoring the solution 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A service level agreement between Tenet and Telkom ensures a high level of service, with direct communications between networking staff at the higher education institutions and Telkom`s NNOC.

Ntoele praised the heads of higher learning institutions who called for the creation of Tenet to establish adequate and affordable internetworking services. "We believe that this initiative will go a long way in advancing higher education, and in particular, research and development for the benefit of all South Africans," he said.