Fibreplus, a South African company specialising in the distribution of fibre optic cabling and components for use in high speed transmission of data, video and audio communications, has secured orders worth more than $ 500-million (nearly R 4-billion) for fibre products in the last six months.
However, due to a worldwide shortage of fibre optic cabling, these orders are not being fulfilled, says Fibreplus international operations director, Craig Nolte.
"We are receiving orders from all over the globe for fibre optic cabling," he says. "The biggest demand is coming from the US, where local manufacture is capable of meeting less than 50% of domestic requirements."
In addition to mission critical communication needs, Nolte says growing demand for high-speed Internet connections in high-rise buildings - and the consequent elimination of copper cabling - is responsible for increases in global demand for fibre as high as 100% per month over the last 12 months.
In South Africa, around 2 million kilometres of fibre are manufactured annually, mainly to meet Telkom requirements for long haul or inter-city deployments.
Nolte says the industry is predicting as much as a 60% annual growth rate in 2001 for the indoor/outdoor cable that is required for new high-rise building applications and other such "high tech" solutions.
He says that there are significant incentives for local manufacturers to expand production, however a key constraint is the limited availability of quartz glass, the most important raw material, which is also in global shortage.
Nolte says that efforts by manufacturers to switch to synthetic fibre products to fill the gap have resulted in shortages of many of the components integral in the manufacturing process. Critical shortages of raw materials are expected to last for at least another two years before new plants in the US come on stream.
One of the spin-offs of the worldwide shortage of optic fibre is the escalating price.
"Last year one strand of fibre was being traded at around $40 per km. Today, countries experiencing the most critical shortages - such as India - are prepared to pay up to $ 110 per km," he adds.
"We continue to supply our customers in the US, UK and Canada with whatever fibre we can lay our hands on," Nolte adds, "we are scouring the world for supply but it is difficult when there is such an acute shortage."
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