Eskom`s all Africa optic fibre dream

Johannesburg, 30 May 2001

Cecil John Rhodes may have been the first to dream of a Cape to Cairo railway line, but depending on how you look at it, Eskom Enterprises is even more ambitious. Esi-Tel, the Eskom telecommunications arm, says it should be relatively simple to string a fibre optic cable all the way to Europe, without using submarine cables.

Speaking at a Black IT Forum conference in Johannesburg yesterday, Eskom Enterprises executive manager Ron Coney explained Eskom`s plans as it gears up to become part of the second national operator (SNO).

"We can connect up to West Africa through existing high-voltage wires," he said, displaying a map of the African electricity network. Gaps exist in the network just south of the equator, but he said these would soon be bridged.

Eskom has developed a process to string fibre optic cable to high-voltage electric cables using a helicopter, Kevlar-reinforced tape and a petrol-driven wire-running machine. The same technique is being used to roll-out a 14 000km backbone network in SA.

Similar work was previously restricted to about four-and-a-half kilometres per day for each stringing machine and its team of workers, Coney said, but the South African innovation of using a helicopter in the process has upped that to around 20km per day.

The stringing machine cannot follow the high-voltage lines from one pylon to the next, and traditionally a team of men had to be sent up each pylon to construct a small crane to hoist it over the pylon, he says. Using a helicopter with highly trained pilots able to place the machine within 100cm of the target area saves a great amount of time and effort.

"There really is no smart engineering involved, just human skill," he says of the pilots trained in precision flying for the repair of electric cables.

Because the optic cable weighs in at around 30kg per kilometre, it does not put undue strain on the existing power cables, and Coney said the Kevlar tape has a guaranteed lifetime of 15 years. The work can be done without interrupting the power supply.

Gearing up for the SNO

Three teams with helicopters will be used for the 14 000km South African roll-out, which should see the network in place well within the deadline imposed by the switch-on date for the SNO. Eskom said it has over 250 000km of power cables suitable for the optic roll-out.

With the national network in place, metropolitan fibre rings are to be rolled out, with other cross-over links to add more redundancy being the last step.

"Ultimately, by 7 May next year we will have a completed network," Coney said. That is the expected switch-on date for the SNO.

Eskom is also to make the existing hilltop sites it uses for microwave transmission towers available to Esi-Tel. Coney said these sites, with existing infrastructure such as roads and security fencing, can cover almost the entire country with wireless communications, and all the sites form part of an existing broadband microwave network.

Eskom Enterprises will also bring an international gateway to the party. The company is a major shareholder in the Lesotho national operator, a deal Coney described as a learning ground for Eskom.

The fight for 35%

These assets will form the basis of Eskom`s battle for a 35% stake in the SNO, a stated goal that has drawn much criticism from the industry. Coney was careful to downplay the 35% demand, describing it as a ballpark figure.

"It is indicative of the order or magnitude we expect, but it is not a final figure," he said. "We are not looking for any hand-outs from the government, contrary to what you may have read in the Press. We intend to bring value to the table."

Yet he said that Eskom, as a parastatal organisation, had a duty to government to ensure that there was no "inappropriate transfer of assets" to a private company. Esi-Tel was specifically created to house Eskom communications assets prior to the bid for a licence.

He admitted that such a large equity figure could make it difficult to also include the government`s required black empowerment percentage while leaving room for an international partner, but said structures were being devised to accommodate all stakeholders. He declined to reveal details of these structures.

Coney was also forthright in admitting the need for an experienced international operator to form a big part of the SNO consortium. Eskom had no knowledge in telecoms operations or in directly facing customers, he said. "We are learning in Lesotho, but we are not learning quickly enough. We need a strategic equity partner for those skills."