2013 - a connection telecom retrospective

2013 was the year of sharp fibre price cuts, causing a spike in fibre-to-the-building installations that will cause a steep rise in the number of businesses – big and small – with access to true symmetrical high-performance broadband.

A 1 Mbps service can cost as little as R1500 for installation and R 1500 in monthly subscription fees, and is available from providers including Internet Solutions and Neotel.

Having fibre makes a company’s transition to voice over IP infinitely easier, as the speed and other performance improvements remove much of the hassle of engineering VoIP.

Fibre’s superior response times further contribute to VoIP’s attraction. Analogue access lines have an inherent delay in the modulation-demodulation process. For their part, digital circuits have latency delays in the low hundreds of milliseconds, while fibre is orders of magnitude faster, with latency as low as 1.5 to 2ms.

Reflecting this trend, we are noticing a rise in a new kind of niche network provider that specialises in pulling fibre from the kerb into business premises. Communications service providers will have to work out pricing models that allow this development to flourish.

Another important trend relating to fibre costs is the launch of a number of new north-south fibre services. FibreCo Telecommunications, for example, completed its fibre-optic network in November, interconnecting Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, East London and Cape Town and providing more cost effective open-access fibre.

Together, these two events will dismantle one of the biggest inhibitors to adopting fibre connectivity – cost – heralding great benefit for communications in this country.

source: www.itnewsafrica.com

LTE opens up African telecom markets

The introduction of long-term evolution (LTE), a next generation high-speed technology in telecommunications, has brought many new entrants into the market, which are expected to create additional pressure for existing cellular network operators, according to Daniel Jaeger, the vice-president for Alcatel-Lucent in Africa.

“The only difference is that they are not trying to be a full mobile operator. They are merely data players,” Jaeger said, adding: “It’s going to be a tough competition. The new operators focus specifically on the data niche.”

Existing wireless operators that include local telecoms giants Vodacom and MTN are shifting attention to monetising data traffic as voice revenues dwindle.

Jaeger was speaking on the sidelines of the AfricaCom conference in Cape Town, which started on Tuesday and ends today. The event is an aggregation of the communications and technology industry in Africa.

Alcatel-Lucent is currently rolling out LTE, which succeeds third-generation, or 3G technology, in partnership with operators on the continent. Yesterday, the global French telecoms equipment firm announced a new partnership with YooMee Africa, formerly 4G Africa, a privately held Swiss company that provides wireless broadband access in Cameroon.

YooMee holds licences in several countries on the continent and will use Alcatel-Lucent equipment as its main partner when it expands over the next six months.

According to Jaeger, the roll-out of LTE across the continent is, however, scattered. In South Africa, Vodacom was the first to launch LTE solutions for consumers last year. It was followed by MTN.

Cell C, Telkom Mobile and Neotel are also currently expanding their LTE sites.

LTE had become “a fundamental part of growth in Africa where there is no copper infrastructure” similar to Telkom’s in South Africa.

source: www.iol.co

political will is key to unlocking free Wi-Fi zones in Africa

Political decision makers have helped ensure the roll-out of free Wi-Fi access in South Africa’s City of Tshwane (Pretoria), says Alan Knott-Craig Jr.

Knott-Craig Jr -- a chartered accountant who was previously the chief executive officer of mobile messaging service Mxit and former CEO of wireless broadband service provider iBurst -- now heads up non-profit Project Isizwe.

This non-profit seeks to bring internet access to Africans by facilitating the roll-out of free Wi-Fi in public spaces in low-income areas. Project Isizwe also believes that internet should be considered an essential service like water or electricity, and that it should be available to everyone, regardless of circumstance.

And the City of Tshwane is the first recipient of Project Isizwe Wi-Fi. Locations with the service include the likes of Church Square in the central business district (CBD), education facilities such as the University of Pretoria (UP) in Hatfield and a community centre in the township of Mamelodi.

No login or password details are required to access the free Wi-Fi while a fair usage policy limits users to a data cap of 250MB. The likes of pornography websites are also blocked by the service to prevent abuse.

Average broadband speeds are planned to be 1 mbps download and 256 kbps upload.

Phase one of the project has been officially launched this week while the second-phase is set to connect an additional 213 free internet zones around Soshanguve, Mamelodi and Atteridgeville by the end of 2014.

Government workers from the likes of Tshwane IT, City Power and the water department have helped implement the Project Isizwe initiative. Private fixed line telecommunications firm Neotel has also supported the project by providing an internet breakout of 200 mbps.

Meanwhile, Knott-Craig told ITWeb Africa on Wednesday that Project Isizwe’ relationships with Tshwane government workers in particular has been key to rolling out such a project.

“There’s no technical reasons why this can’t be replicated everywhere, except political will,” Knott-Craig told ITWeb Africa.

“If you find a key political decision maker...you can get this done,” he said.

Knott-Craig further told ITWeb Africa that the first key requirement to getting this done is setting up a non-profit organisation to carry out the project so as to cut out a “middle-man” and any profit incentives.

source : itwebafrica.com