Johannesburg, 11 Mar 2014
Smart Village, majority owned by MultiChoice, successfully used Far South Networks communications platforms to provide reliable, quality telephony services to its clients in large gated communities, and they have stood the test of time. Far South Networks products were chosen after products from similar international vendors were unable to provide a reliable and stable solution.
Performing the role of a successful next-generation telecommunications service provider in a legacy telecoms environment requires a powerful mixture of technology that is both smart and robust.
In 2009, Far South Networks supplied communications platforms to Vodacom Gated Services, which now forms part of Smart Village. Vodacom Gated Services was experiencing many unique South African challenges to deploying reliable, quality voice and data services to many of these clients. Far South Networks' Comma iTA range of devices was able to offer Smart Village a solution to these challenges.
Residences in these gated community environments were connected via legacy twisted pair copper cable. A typical deployment consisted of a centrally located Asterisk-based PBX for provisioning of telephony services while SIP Gateway platforms provided analogue telephone connections to each home. Wireless and ISDN trunk networks were then used for connection to the national telecommunications operator.
Most sites were, however, experiencing numerous audio quality, call control and stability issues, which Smart Village technicians identified as a weakness of the analogue SIP gateways used on site.
Smart Village replaced these SIP gateways with Far South Networks Comma iTA equipment within its Western Cape installations. These sites included the gated communities of Stonehurst, Villa Itallia, Bougain Villas, Oasis, Sable Square, Mount Royal, Knightsbridge and Eden on the Bay, many of which were distributed over very large physical areas containing in excess of 450 homes.
The Comma iTA device proved to be extremely resilient to power cycling caused by site power fluctuations. Powerful and easy-to-use diagnostic tools enabled Smart Village technicians to monitor and diagnose problems associated with local telephone and data cabling. It is also specified to drive 3km cables, while providing highly effective protection mechanisms against power surges and lightning strikes.
"I still recall supporting the Smart Village technical team in a large Comma iTA installation at Stonehurst," says Far South Networks Managing Director, Grant Broomhall. "Real-time exposure for the product in an electrically challenging environment enabled us to prove that the product was indeed designed for purpose."
Complete stability ensued for over three years, until October 2013 when a particularly intense Cape storm flooded the Stonehurst data centre. This resulted in water damage to four of the existing 12 Comma iTA units on site.
Due to the Ethernet LAN based scalability of the Comma iTA device, damaged units were easily removed from the network while the remaining equipment continued normal operation. Smart Village was thus able to continue providing services to the unaffected Stonehurst residents.
Far South Networks is proud of the deployment of its technology in Smart Village projects, and particularly to witness the quality and reliability of the products in situations where global, branded products were unable to cope.
"Smart Village has deployed over 50 24-port Comma iTA units in the Cape region over the past four years. To date we have found the product to be both robust and reliable with high performance and extremely low replacement percentage. We are happy to use them in Cat3 networks," says Mike Clegg, Smart Village Operations Manager.
Far South Networks Comma iTA product provides a cost-effective, flexible and comprehensive telephony interface solution for the open source Asterisk-based PBX, contact centre and SIP gateway installation. The Comma iTA was designed to operate in harsh environments, providing high resilience to lightning and power surge events and offering telco grade performance.
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