Tellumat secures defence order

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 08 Aug 2007

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has awarded defence ICT company Tellumat a R3.5 million contract to supply point-to-point digital microwave radio links to upgrade and expand its national command and control network.

The contract forms part of the Defence Department's plans to spend about half-a-billion rand in the next seven years to put in place an ICT "system of systems".

The system will integrate the SANDF's disparate legacy and new command-and-control systems, as well as the department's administration systems.

Geoff Carey, GM of Tellumat's wireless solutions business unit, says the contract is another "influential endorsement" of Tellumat's expertise, with the equipment under consideration having been designed, developed and manufactured locally.

"This contract shows the belief of the market in our ability and capacity, which extends beyond enterprise-grade communications equipment to kit which satisfies the requirements of military customers in terms of reliability and security."

Ferguson adds that Tellumat's involvement covers the entire life cycle of the products, from manufacturing and installation to commissioning and repairs, in a full turnkey delivery. Tellumat will make low-to-medium capacity links. These products traverse the entire frequency spectrum of fixed point-to-point microwave transmission (7-38GHz).

Microwave links are commonly used to connect remote sites providing access to networks.

Sole supplier to Neotel

Tellumat ploughs an internationally competitive portion of its revenue back into research and development, says Tellumat CEO Rasheed Hargey. Tellumat uses up to 50% local components in its assemblies, whereas most ICT equipment content from the global brands is imported.

Tellumat was recently also named the sole supplier of similar links to Neotel, SA's second national operator. Its ongoing supply to Telkom, with the same technology, is well-publicised.

The company's systems may be found useful by the SANDF in its deployments into Africa, says Brian Ferguson, marketing and sales manager for Tellumat Defence.