No clarity on Joburg broadband

Johannesburg, 05 Feb 2008

Despite months of no visible movement, the City of Johannesburg says everything is on track for the R500 million Joburg Broadband Network Project (JBNP).

"There are no delays. We are on track with our tender schedule," says city media liaison Nthatisi Modingoane. "We are still in the request for proposals process, meaning bidders are still responding to the tender, by assembling a demo network to ensure that what they say on paper, they can also deliver in real-time."

Work on the establishment of demonstration networks was initially scheduled to begin in April last year - 25 companies submitted proposals during the early stages of the project. Eleven companies have been short-listed to participate in the testing phase. They are: Altech, Dimension Data, Ericsson, Goal Technology Solutions, MTN, MWeb/Tellumat, Neology, Telkom, Transtel, Sentech and Vodacom.

Democratic Alliance councillor Tsepo Mhlongo, in January, asked the city for an update on progress with the project, but found he was being stonewalled. He says he will raise the issue in the city council when its 2008 session commences.

Plagued by problems

The project seemed to suffer numerous delays when project head Douglas Cohen quit last year to take up a position at Accenture. At that stage, Cohen would not be drawn on reasons for the hold-ups, but indicated politics could have been a reason for the project not taking off.

"I was basically fighting the machine, I got really tired. I was not getting the support I needed and it was affecting my personal life," he said at the time of his departure.

Short-listed bidders said they had no idea about the progress of the project and have subsequently been bound by non-disclosure agreements.

City representative Virgil James said the project would continue over the holiday period. "It is the Christmas season and we will be working behind the scenes. We will have more information in the new year."

City of Joburg would not provide information on a new schedule, saying: "Your question would be more relevant once a bidder is actually awarded the contract."

The JBNP was planned to exploit a mix of telecommunication technology, as the city owns several diverse platforms and infrastructure, as well as a private telecoms network licence.

Available template

Communication Solutions (Comsol) director Darren Morgan says industry talk is that the delay with JBNP is not the entire problem. "The real issue is that there is no real backbone infrastructure planned. JBNP needs a backbone in place to run an access network."

Comsol was involved in the development of the broadband network in the Nelson Mandela metropole. "As part of the solution, PE built a pre-WiMax network with a licensed backbone - a full duplex backbone with point to multipoint access - that covers the entire metro," says Morgan.

The city installed a proprietary WAN network. "And the WiFi installation on top of the WAN is being used in the area for which it was designed - a point-to-point system and not distribution. Essentially the whole city is clouded in WiFi and it works like a bomb."

The JBNP will eventually integrate, along with similar initiatives in Ekurhuleni and Tshwane (Pretoria), with the "Blue Umbrella" scheme. The scheme is run by the Gauteng government investment company Blue IQ. The company has been mum on the details and for the moment it is not clear how or when the networks will link.