A joint venture (JV) between the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Gauteng Economic Development Agency to supply corporate SA with high-speed, almost unlimited wireless telecoms access remains under negotiation, says the CSIR.
Dubbed Stratos, the JV also involves an unnamed US technology partner which will supply the requirements necessary to deliver the bandwidth by four fixed-wing aircraft flying above commercial air traffic and adverse weather conditions at 50 000 feet. Each aircraft would carry a telecommunications payload of just under 820kg.
According to the plan, the aircraft would fly in shifts above a designated region, creating a wireless broadband network with a footprint up to 150km wide. Average data transfer rate is expected to be 5Mbps-10Mbps, and in certain instances, more than 25Mbps. All that the customer would require is a satellite dish much like those used by DStv subscribers.
Cobus Roux, CSIR project manager for the Stratos initiative, says that not much has changed since the JV was initially announced. "We`re busy talking to potential partners, and will be subject to due diligence investigation over the next three weeks."
Roux adds that more information should be forthcoming at the end of that time period. Meanwhile, the CSIR is in the middle of preparing an economic feasibility study and related business plan.
"We`re laying down the groundwork now, which means that Stratos will become operational in two to three years," says Roux.
This means that Stratos should take flight at around the time at which Telkom`s exclusivity licence is expected to expire. Stratos is also in the process of signing up a local operator along whose backbone the bandwidth broadcast from the aircraft will be distributed to local customers.
Though the network will support video, data, IP and mobile telephony, television broadcast and video-on-demand, the initial offering will be purely data-focused.
If successful, the Stratos JV will result in a hybrid between a satellite and a wireless network, operating at 16km above the Earth. Geo-stationary satellites normally operate at 60 000km, and low-Earth orbit satellites at 400km above the Earth.
Meanwhile, the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (SATRA) is still out on its plans to allocate a frequency band for stratospheric telecoms as part of its project to reorganise SA`s frequency spectrum known as Sabre 11. Stratos will remain grounded until such time as the relevant frequencies are allocated.
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