Telkom has been awarded the contract to supply a total end-to-end communications solution for The Innovation Hub currently under construction in Pretoria.
The Innovation Hub is the first internationally accredited Science and Technology Park in Africa. It is being established as a hi-tech cluster to provide a strong foundation for the creation of intellectual property and technology commercialisation.
As one of the Gauteng Provincial Government`s Blue IQ strategic economic infrastructure projects, it will help align the trajectory of Gauteng as a `smart` province to that of global economic developments.
"If Gauteng is to develop as a smart province, the first step is to ensure that a pipeline is created to foster innovation and drive the development of business activity linked to new intellectual property," said Dr Neville Comins, Chief Executive Officer of The Innovation Hub Management Company, at the roof wetting ceremony of the project`s two core buildings on 24 August 2004.
"In order to address the information and communications technology (ICT) requirements of The Innovation Hub, it was imperative for Telkom to have engineered an architecture that facilitates the convergence of voice, data, video and multimedia across an all encompassing Internet Protocol (IP) platform through our range of value added services," said Godfrey Ntoele, Telkom`s Managing Executive for Business and Government markets.
Telkom`s total integrated approach to this project will ensure the company delivers a scalable, flexible and manageable broadband communications solution. Through its best-of-breed technology partners, Telkom will deliver a holistic converged solution, which will include a state-of-the-art IP telephony and a total local area network (LAN) solution from Cisco. The LAN solution is totally scalable with the potential to connect thousands of users to central services offered by The Innovation Hub.
Tenants located within The Innovation Hub will be in a position to integrate their communications requirements across a shared infrastructure. In the initial phase, 600 persons can be accommodated on the system.
Telkom will manage the Hub`s entire network from its National Network Operations Centre in Centurion right up to the instrument on the desk. "Telkom`s business and services model has evolved to now offer The Innovation Hub a compelling value proposition which will meet its present and future information technology and communications requirements," Ntoele said.
Telkom will commence installation in November this year, with the first customers moving in by the end of the year.
Share
Editorial contacts