Wednesday 27 July 2011

Seacom boosts SA fibre network


 Siversmith[PCD]    27 Jul : 09:56
 None    Internet

Fibre purchase from DFA to support growth in bandwidth consumption; 100Gbps of the fibre will initially be lit

Fibre purchase from DFA to support growth in bandwidth consumption; 100Gbps of the fibre will initially be lit

SEACOM has invested R100 million in additional South African infrastructure to meet the continuous high growth in demand for broadband services and applications.

The investment includes the purchase of physical optical fibre links from Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) as well as installing the equipment required for SEACOM to manage the network linking KwaZulu Natal’s coast where the SEACOM marine cable lands to two redundant Points of Presence (PoPs) in Gauteng.

Initially, 100 Gigabit per second (Gbps) of the fibre will be lit (using current 10Gbps technology) and a further 20 waves are expected to be lit within the next 12 months.

Modern transmission technology is being used with 100Gbps per wavelength which gives the new link a design capacity of over 8 Terabit per second (Tbps). This is in line with SEACOM’s plans to expand the marine portion of the cable to over 4.8Tbps.

This capacity enables SEACOM to align current and future customer needs with the explosion in broadband demand driven by a wave of content rich applications, such as cloud computing, to meet enterprise requirements, HD video streaming and IPTV services.

This investment also supports SEACOM’s recently launched Internet Protocol (IP) platform that will drive the proliferation of content created in Africa and the regional hosting of international content.

Brian Herlihy, SEACOM CEO, said: “South Africa continues to offer tremendous growth opportunities and this investment confirms SEACOM’s view that adequate infrastructure will ensure that the market can absorb new capacity within record time.

“In our continuous quest to improve quality of service, this is one of the many investments that we are making to ensure that we provide our customers with the best possible support as we continue to build the African Internet based on low-latency, high speed and reliable infrastructure.???

Managed by SEACOM and its suppliers, the route is the company’s first co-build of this nature. It will be operated in parallel with SEACOM’s existing routes and will provide customers with the benefit of protected services delivered across multiple, physically diverse routes and operated by multiple providers.

Suveer Ramdhani, SEACOM’s Head of Product Strategy, said: “This new capacity will benefit the end user by enabling SEACOM clients to bring new content rich products to market in a reliable and economical way.

“The scale of the capacity we are making available on the route is yet another first in Africa and you can expect us to continue rolling out more ground-breaking technological developments in the near future.???


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Friday 22 July 2011

Telkom looks ready to fight LLU


 Siversmith[PCD]    22 Jul : 08:39
 None    Internet

Telkom shows its Local Loop Unbundling hand, and it does not bode well for people who expect Telkom to be soft on the issue

Telkom shows its Local Loop Unbundling hand, and it does not bode well for people who expect Telkom to be soft on the issue

Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) is widely seen as a driver of competition by giving competitors access to the incumbent telecom operator’s last mile copper infrastructure, which would prove very expensive for competitors to replicate.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) opened the debate around LLU when it unveiled the long awaited Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) discussion document on 22 June 2011.

Previously Telkom has not commented on ICASA’s LLU discussion document, but the company broke their silence today (14 July 2011).

Speaking at the South African Communications Forum (SACF) Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) workshop, Telkom’s head of regulatory affairs, Andrew Barendse, said that LLU is very complicated and very costly.

“I will be very surprised if any of the drivers of LLU in the European Union will advise LLU for South Africa as it will be counter-productive because of the cost and complexities associated with the process,??? said Barendse. “LLU is not designed for developing nations like BRICS countries.???

He continued by saying that there are no peer reviewed studies which point to job creation or rural development related to LLU.

Barendse further questioned whether LLU results in the stated objectives, pointing to academic papers which show that LLU failed in various regions where it was implemented.

Barendse quoted Ewan Sutherland’s paper ‘Unbundling local loops: global experiences’ which states that “In Africa, unbundling the local loop may not be the answer or not a very significant answer. With the exception of a few countries, there are insufficient local loops for the enormous regulatory effort to be worthwhile???.

Barendse told delegates at the SACF LLU seminar to always keep the three ‘Cs’ in mind when thinking about LLU: Complex, Costly and Counter Productive in the case of South Africa.

While Barendse highlighted that his words should be seen as merely a conversation about local loop unbundling, it clearly shows that Telkom is not keen to see LLU being implemented in South Africa.

Barendse’s words may also indicate that the regulator and providers looking for access to Telkom’s copper infrastructure can expect a fight when it comes to full LLU implementation in South Africa.

This is not unexpected considering that Telkom CEO Pinky Moholi recently stated that local loop unbundling poses a major risk for the company – sending a strong message that Telkom is unlikely to make it easy for rivals to gain full access to its last mile infrastructure.

“Industry should not be surprised that we are cautioning against LLU in South Africa,??? said Barendse. “It is not clear what the benefits of LLU will be, and how the benefits will exceed the cost associated with LLU in SA.???

Rudolph Muller

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/telecoms/29060-telkom-looks-ready-to-fight-llu.html
[Submitted by Siversmith[PCD]]

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Thursday 07 July 2011

Facebook launches video calls, powered by Skype


 Siversmith[PCD]    07 Jul : 16:00
 None    Internet

Facebook is rolling out video calls.

Facebook is rolling out video calls. It’s powered by Internet phone company Skype

Quick on the heels of Google’s launch of its latest social-networking venture, Facebook is rolling out video calls. It’s powered by Internet phone company Skype.

Facebook said Wednesday that it is also rolling out a group chat feature. Facebook users can now create instant group chats if they want to quickly message a small group of their friends.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook now has 750 million users. And they share 4 billion things such as photos, links and status updates on the site every day.

Google Inc. opened up Google Plus last week on an invite-only basis.

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[Submitted by Siversmith[PCD]]

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