The past financial year has seen Telkom surging ahead with its programme to implement cutting-edge technologies, to meet increasing customer demand for bandwidth and enhanced products.
Speaking during today`s release of its annual results, Telkom`s CEO, Sizwe Nxasana, said the Company had grown data and multimedia revenues by 39% to R3,5 billion in 1999/2000. He attributed this growth to increased customer demand, product enhancements, the development of additional sales channels, price reductions on data and internet-based products, and the ongoing expansion of the ISDN and Diginet customer base.
"Bandwidth availability, one of the drivers behind the current convergence of the telecommunications, information technology and broadcasting industries, remains a key focus for Telkom. The total number of 2Mb circuits grew by 53% in 1999/2000, with even higher growth of 78% in ISDN primary rate services," said Nxasana.
"ISDN services have consistently shown exceptional growth since the commercial launch in April 1995, and are now growing at an average rate of 7% per month. The key factors behind our ISDN success were the cuts in monthly rental rates in both 1999 and 2000, and the increase in availability of basic rate ISDN in the network to 96%," he added.
Nxasana said Telkom had piloted new technologies like Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM), which had the potential to increase the capacity of Telkom`s optical fibre networks by 40 times in the next two years. Both these capacity-enhancing technologies are being tested in limited pilot applications.
"Apart from that, we`ve upgraded the transport network with the latest synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) equipment over optic fibre self-healing rings, and started deploying ATM technology extensively across the country in 1999. Our core ATM network now covers practically all the major metropolitan areas," said Nxasana.
He explained that this technology had an important role to play in the evolution of Telkom`s network, as it provided a sound platform from which to support Internet Protocol. A growing number of corporate customers were migrating towards ATM, as part of an ongoing process that Telkom would accelerate as part of its technological deployment, sales, marketing and customer service initiatives.
Nxasana added that the re-launch of Telkom`s FrameRelay product as FrameExpress in June 1999, which was accompanied by network view enhancements and a price reduction, and the launch in October of Cybertrade, its e-commerce solution, were two important milestones in Telkom`s data product offerings.
"Telkom also assisted in pioneering delivery of the first online lottery in Africa. We provided a 950-site VSAT (very Small Aperture Terminal) satellite backbone from March 2000 for the licensed national lottery network operator, Uthingo, including those in the remotest parts of the country," he said.
"Early in the new financial year, we will begin the migration towards a Next Generation Network (NGN) that will support one connection capable of handling voice, data and video, making the virtual office a reality," said Nxasana. "Through this connection, customers will have access to high bandwidth and optimum availability, while being able to manage their communication devices, whether fax, phone, modem or data lines, through just one phone number."
Nxasana explained that Telkom`s National Network Operations Centre (NNOC) would be an integral part of these changes, with plans already in place to introduce new support systems that would allow the synergy created by the NNOC to be exploited to the full as the network evolved.
He said that the signing in June 1999 of an agreement on the SAT-3 WASC SAFE cable project had paved the way for an undersea optical fibre system that would cater for Sub-Saharan Africa`s burgeoning telecommunications needs for the next decade .
"This US$600 million project has brought together 40 nations and some of the world`s most influential telecommunications players. Expected to be fully operational in December 2001, this system will stretch nearly 30 000 kilometres and will link Africa to Europe and Asia.
"It consists of an 80 gigabit link, with capacity equal to 960 000 simultaneous (non-compressed) telephone conversations, and the cost of transmission is significantly less than that of a comparable satellite transmission," said Nxasana.
He added that one of the major benefits of the project was that it would be owned, controlled and maintained by the individual operators.
"Whereas nearly 80 percent of Africa`s telecommunications revenue currently flows out of the continent, revenue generated by the African operators will remain in Africa - which is critical to the economic development of the continent as a whole."
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