Tellumat targets 2010

Johannesburg, 29 May 2008

Tellumat, the telecoms, defence, electronic manufacturing and supply company is gunning for 2010 business and is punting present and past deals to build a business case. It is also revealing details of some future work.

This includes being named the sole supplier of microwave links that will help power the national network of Neotel, tendering for a fibre optic network for the Cape metropole and being short-listed for a wireless broadband network for the City of Johannesburg.

Tellumat CEO Rasheed Hargey is leading the charge, saying the company has, in the last decade, "built extensively on its product and solution portfolio, completing development of nine key product families and building project, engineering, development, manufacturing and servicing skills in numbers. "Many of these fall squarely within the ballpark of the country's 2010 needs."

Hargey says Tellumat "has, over the last few months, signed supply deals with best-of-breed telecoms companies, including Telkom, MWEB, Orion and Vox Telecom", for a variety of platforms and systems.

Tellumat has also beefed up its hitherto Cape-based electronic contract manufacturing capacity, with a 50% acquisition of the Gauteng-based PCB assembly facility from Denel, which now supplies Carl Zeiss Optronics. This came just months after its acquisition of Rhomco, a Cape-based outsourced manufacturer of high-end electronics. "Total throughput for just one customer currently exceeds 40 000 circuit boards per month, giving the SA market a cost-effective, quality, high-capacity alternative to cheap mass production in the Far East," says Hargey.

Tellumat's defence business has also supplied microwave links to the SA National Defence Force to upgrade and expand the military's national command and control network. Other work for the military includes the ongoing maintenance of the SA Air Force's Umlindi air-defence radar system and the recently won maintenance deal for Airfield Radar Approach Systems. The work was snatched from Saab-Grintek, which held the contract till last year.

Paradoxically, Tellumat will also act as local agent for Saab's Erieye offer to SA. SA is said to be considering leasing several of the airborne radar systems for safeguarding the 2010 World Cup. Afterwards it would be used for border control, shipping control, anti-poaching operations and search-and-rescue.

Other recent business, through subsidiary SIA Solutions, includes landing the automated weather observer systems for Lanseria Airport; an instrument landing system for Bhisho Airport and several fibre-optic communications installations, including one for the Airports Company of SA and the Meraka Institute.

"Having won over the local market, SIA's recent wins extend to two Botswana airports, signalling a breakthrough era for the company in which its capabilities are being recognised further afield," says Hargey.