Johannesburg, 28 Mar 2012
Telkom has deployed the first of 3 700 multi-service access nodes (MSANs) to revamp its network and provide facilities for faster, more flexible services to customers.
This forms part of Telkom's 'Network Transformation Initiative' plans announced in June last year. “We have achieved major traction against these plans,” said Bashier Sallie, MD of wholesale and networks at Telkom.
Telkom's network revamp includes the work completed on network operation centres, the transmission network constructed for the 2010 Fifa World Cup, the upgrade of international bandwidth such as the West African Cable System cable, due to enter service later in 2012, and a technical skills transformation programme also under way.
The equipment in each MSAN may vary, but a fully outfitted MSAN unit can service up to 1 200 customers, said Alphonzo Samuels, managing executive for network infrastructure provisioning.
The first MSAN unit, placed in Waterkloof Ridge, Pretoria, is one of 3 700 to be installed country-wide, replacing 2 700 older DSLAM cabinets, with 1 000 additional nodes planned. The project is expected to roll out over the next three to five years, Sallie said.
Phasing in
The first 53 units will be in place by the second half of the year, to facilitate a carefully controlled cut-over from existing equipment, Samuels said. Target areas in Gauteng (including Fourways and Benmore Gardens), Durban North, and Cape Town are among the first earmarked for upgrade.
The new MSANs are connected by fibre to exchanges, and house the processing cards providing network intelligence directly inside the cabinet instead of at the exchange. This allows services to be provisioned and managed remotely.
From the MSAN, connections are all IP into Telkom's core network - the Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent devices within the cabinet are responsible for provisioning the services such as voice, DSL, ISDN over the last mile to the customer. Future services enabled by the MSAN units will include high speed ADSL2+, VDSL, and fibre to the home.
The MSANs will allow for data speeds up to 40Mbps over copper, or 1Gbps over fibre, due to the reduction of the length of the local loop. Fibre to the home (or business premises) will be considered where demand warrants it, or where aging copper requires replacement.
MSANs will be deployed inside existing exchanges, to service high-density areas already close enough to the exchange. Some will bypass their nearest exchange, taking advantage of the fibre range to connect more efficiently to exchanges further away.
This will mean consolidation of equipment and even entire facilities at the exchange level. Some entire facilities will become redundant, Sallie confirmed, but no reduction in staff is expected at this stage.
With network intelligence in the cabinet, power protection becomes crucial. Each MSAN contains battery backups able to sustain 10 hours of power interruption, Samuels said.
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