Following the announcement made in July last year, MTN SA has confirmed that the National Long Distance (NLD) consortium, consisting of MTN, Vodacom, Neotel and SANRAL (South African National Road Agency Limited), has successfully completed the trenching of almost 700km of fibre optic cable in December 2012. MTNÂ successfully lit up this route from Germiston to Durban on 24 January 2013.
“This project marks a significant achievement and milestone in our self-provisioning strategy. The transmission system used on the route is completely managed by MTN and is testament to our commitment to connecting South Africa to the world with high-speed data,” says Kanagaratnam (Lambo) Lambotharan, Chief Technology Officer at MTN SA.
The system currently supports 400 Gbps of traffic and is scalable to  meet future requirements.
In addition to the MTN Transmission Planning Head Office, MTN would like to thank its partners Vodacom, Neotel and SANRAL, Plessey, the primary construction contractor; Huawei, the equipment supplier and support; Bowman Gilfillan, the attorneys for the consortium; HIP Consult, for consulting services offered; SACC responsible for quality control; NBSS, the programme management office; and Netronix, the environmental agency.
“The NLD project will positively impact business development and entrepreneurship in the country in terms of access speeds as well as delivering the ability to circumvent some of the challenges that exist around national and last-mile connectivity,” concludes Lambotharan.
Staff writer
