In a bid to continually address the needs for reliable high speed connectivity, MTN has announced that its national long distance fibre optic network, between Germiston and Durban – in collaboration with Neotel and Vodacom – is nearing completion. Two major MTN nodes, New Germany and Durban, are ready to go live on the MTN network.
Says Kanagaratnam Lambotharan, CTO at MTN: “50% of the fibre floating and over 95% of the total route trenching has been completed – certainly a key milestone in our network footprint which is designed and optimised to link major population centres and economic hubs, as well as interconnect with the international submarine cable landing sites. We are excited about the two major nodes that have gone live as they are designed to accommodate significant capacity, thus enabling MTN to cater for additional customers in the area, where incremental capacity can also be used to service corporate customers with dedicated hosted and converged solutions.”
The historic project, which began in 2009, marked one of the largest collaborations in the South African telecommunications industry – covering 5 000km and connecting major city centres across South Africa – of which this is the first route.Â
This initial route plays a significant role in MTN’s goals to take Africa to the world and bring the world to Africa by linking up with the EASSy undersea cable on the East coast.
Continues Lambotharan; “The network is designed to connect directly with MTN’s international cable assets, thereby allowing for Tier 1 Internet backbone access and high quality connectivity with other MTN operations across Africa and the Middle East.
This allows for:
* Quality improvement – the network substantially increases raw transmission capacity to carry national traffic – enhancing network availability and resilience.
* Service innovation – the network creates a robust infrastructure to support fixed mobile converged services and the growing need of bandwidth intensive content.”
MTN will be working hard to ensure that the remaining nodes are connected within the upcoming months, concluding this phase of the company’s ambitious optic fibre network deployment.
“We look forward to the impact our newly live fibre optic network will have on changing business needs and connectivity options, as we aim to assist in closing the current gap that exists regarding last mile access,” concludes Lambotharan.
Staff writer
Ayoba!
patented in 2004 by a Togolese researcher, Dr. Victor Agbegnenou, the PWCS (Polyvalent Wireless Communication System) technology, the technology of the Thales Group, uses microwave and as “a fibre through the air”.
Lebon Ngounou, who heads the Cameroonian society IdreamGroup in charge of commercializing this technology in Africa, “the PWCS is the economical alternative market to reduce the digital divide by ensuring capacity and rates comparable to those of optical fibre for a lower cost up to 10 times”. The PWCS ould allow, according to its proponent, to offer African consumers of triple play (internet very broadband, telephony and television) for 15,000 CFA FRANCS per month.
Lebon Ngounou of Cameroonian society IdreamGroup.
Concretely, the PWCS is a “row of technology”, says Lebon Ngounou: “This means that the signal is transmitted between two antennas – a transmitter and a receiver – and that message passes between these two points that in the absence of obstruction, such as a building or a relief.” If obstacle, it adds a relay. The receiver is then connected to the user by wiring, optical or non. The Subscriber, equipped with a decoder can then benefit from an offer triple play. Each receiver can also become a relay transmitter, which allows the creation of a dense and this network to the last kilometre, often very expensive to connect fibre optique.».
To their promoter, radio technology requires little time to install, as the fibre which should support the achievement of trenches and therefore the cost of work in civil engineering. On the other hand, the antennas, which do not measure “18 inch”, are arranged on existing infrastructure and require that rarely the construction of towers. This low-cost infrastructure would thus bring very high flow in sparsely populated areas and ensure universal access to low-cost.
The process has already tested in a real situation in Auger Saint Vincent, 50 km from Paris, said Mr. Ngounou.(http://www.augersaintvincent.fr/article/articleview/64/1/27). It team already the University of Ouagadougou or UEMOA headquarters.
PWCS:
Voice
( Fixed and mobile 4G and LTE Advanced or Very mobile broadband).
Data
(super-fast broadband)
TV
IPTV, VOD, HDTV, personal Tv, network games, Broadcast and television programs in HD, Retransmit live broadcasts by PWCS, videoconferencing, CCTV with alarm, Geolocation, GPS.