Alcatel-Lucent has started design work related to its 34 million euro (about R337 million) deal, announced last month, to design and deploy an integrated communication, security and IT system for the new King Shaka International Airport, north of Durban.
The airport must be in service by the time SA hosts the FIFA Soccer World Cup, in June 2010, and will be able to handle more than 7.5 million passengers a year.
Alcatel-Lucent will also provide project management, design, integration, installation and deployment of the end-to-end solution, which will consist of 25 subsystems spanning telecoms backbone, security and IT.
Alcatel-Lucent industry and public sector division president Michael Fabian says the Integrated Communications Solution for Airports (ICSA) will also form the communications backbone for the 2 000-hectare Dube Trade Port site - of which the airport is one constituent - and will include an advanced e-commerce-enabled trade zone providing high-speed connections to commercial tenant sites.
Based on Internet Protocol/Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology, ICSA will deliver a set of applications that will enable airport tenants, such as the airlines, car rental companies, stores, restaurants and emergency teams, to tailor, control and manage calls, messages and directories, Fabian adds. These IP-based unified communications applications also will provide flexible, innovative collaboration tools and user-friendly access to information.
Alcatel-Lucent will deploy its 7750 Service Router in the core for Internet Protocol/Virtual Private Network and security; and the 5620 Service Aware Manager to ensure the highest possible quality of service, end-to-end across the MPLS backbone network.
Fabian notes that Alcatel-Lucent will complement its own black economic empowerment credentials with the skills and expertise of local suppliers to help it meet the project`s ambitious BEE targets.
"Alcatel-Lucent has an innovative approach to providing the kind of advanced communications, security and information services we envision, and equally important, it has the expertise to make it a reality," says Ilembe project director Duncan Barry.
Ilembe is the consortium building the greenfields airport. "The communications and information system will be an integral part of the overall services that this new airport will offer airlines and their passengers who fly in and out of this country."
Ilembe comprises major construction industry players WBHO and Group 5, together with a number of black empowerment entities.
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