R5bn FibreCo network on track

Added by Editor on 20 April 2011.
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The national fibre network partnership between Cell C, Internet Solutions and Convergence Partners is on track to complete its first phase by the end of next year.

Arif Hussain, CEO of FibreCo, says good progress being made on key activities supporting the development of the network. These include negotiations with local and international network implementation partners, governmental authorities and various other market players.

He says FibreCo has also been engaging with players in the education and research communities to see if there could be ways to help them use the system.

TechCentral broke the news late last year that the three companies had entered into a partnership to build the R5bn, 12 000km national network.

According to Hussain, the environmental impact studies have been completed for the initial routes and the tender process is moving ahead.

The initial phase of the project will be a 4 500km core ring linking Gauteng, Cape Town and Durban to international cable landing stations. This phase should be completed by the end of next year, he says.

FibreCo expects partial routes, including the Johannesburg to Cape Town link, to come on stream earlier, which will bring much-needed additional capacity between the two cities.

The cable is being built using an open-access model, which will allow other providers to use the infrastructure.

Cell C’s national wireless network will provide the platform for the co-location of optical transmission equipment at its base stations as well as wireless access solutions for FibreCo’s customers, says Hussain.

Internet Solutions will be responsible for value-added services to the enterprise markets and Convergence Partners will contribute its expertise in the developmental and financial spheres.  — Staff reporter, TechCentral

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  • James

    Now if only Telkom would see the light in opening up the infrastructure, making it open for other service providers to make use of. We’d be in a better state of affairs regarding the use / availability of the Internet – hopefully even have them reduce it to a price that is actually affordable to most people?

  • Z Zing

    hmmm … fibre is the way to go when cable theft appears to be the incumbent operators greatest woe. So, with the precedent being set in Armenia by a granny trying to make a buck “accidentally” cuts of the whole country’s internet these grand verbose intellectual business people come with a plan to employ a first world solution to a third world problem. Hardly likely … WIRELESS is the ONLY way to go and relegate fibre to undersea cables!

  • ipkwena

    ZZing, there is nothing first world about deploying optic fiber cables in South Africa or Armenia as it were. Some of us here would like to have choices of a media type to connect to the internet and certainly one day I would like to have fiber to my home.

    If these “intellectuals” are able to do that at a cost I can afford, then I will definitely sign up. That is why I have electricity, water and other essential services in my home, not because they are first world, but because I consider them important enough to pay for.

    You seem to confuse the societal challenges South Africa is presently facing with business opportunities “intellectuals” have identified. Feel free to differ with me but your opening remarks are at best rather naive and at worst very ignorant.

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