TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentral TechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Moves afoot to fix Eskom’s debt problem

      4 July 2022

      Audi South Africa to offer free connectivity upgrades

      4 July 2022

      Shock fuel price increase announced

      4 July 2022

      Wiocc’s data centre business, OADC, appoints CEO

      4 July 2022

      Google’s Equiano cable lands in Namibia

      3 July 2022
    • World

      Tether fails to calm jittery nerves

      4 July 2022

      EU to impose wide-ranging new rules on the crypto industry

      3 July 2022

      Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows files for bankruptcy

      3 July 2022

      Meta girds for ‘fierce’ headwinds

      1 July 2022

      Graphics card prices plummet as crypto demand dries up

      30 June 2022
    • In-depth

      The NFT party is over

      30 June 2022

      The great crypto crash: the fallout, and what happens next

      22 June 2022

      Goodbye, Internet Explorer – you really won’t be missed

      19 June 2022

      Oracle’s database dominance threatened by rise of cloud-first rivals

      13 June 2022

      Everything Apple announced at WWDC – in less than 500 words

      7 June 2022
    • Podcasts

      How your organisation can triage its information security risk

      22 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E06 – ‘Apple Silicon’

      15 June 2022

      The youth might just save us

      15 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E05 – ‘Nvidia: The Green Goblin’

      8 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E04 – ‘The story of Intel – part 2’

      1 June 2022
    • Opinion

      South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

      4 July 2022

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022

      A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

      19 May 2022

      From spectrum to roads, why fixing SA’s problems is an uphill battle

      19 April 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»News»Concerns over damage caused by FTTH

    Concerns over damage caused by FTTH

    News By Sungula Nkabinde7 March 2016
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    fibre-640

    Fibre is the way to go. That is not up for debate. Quicker downloads, less buffer time when streaming and seamless online video chats are all perks of having faster Internet. So, for those who can afford to have fibre installed, it’s a no-brainer.

    Or so you would think.

    There appears to be no shortage of troubled households whose dreams of getting fibre to the home (FTTH) have been replaced with nightmares of power cuts and water outages due to damage to underground infrastructure when digging trenches to lay fibre-optic cables.

    According to Dark Fibre Africa chief strategy officer Rashaad Sha, these disruptions are an inevitable part of the process. So, perhaps getting fibre is not a decision that should be taken lightly, or quickly.

    “Residents need to practise meditation and patience because, irrespective of their circumstance, there are bound to be disruptions,” says Sha. “No fibre provider should be telling residents that there aren’t going to be any disruptions or that there will be no incidents because it’s impossible to know.”

    Sha says interruptions happen because companies sometimes hit a service while digging, which may not have been identified by the service provider when the fibre companies showed them where they had planned to dig.

    “Sometimes they may be able to identify the location of their infrastructure but they have no idea what the depth is. Or perhaps because the contractors that built that infrastructure did not follow those specifications,” says Sha. “The specs may have said to lay the water pipe one metre down, for example, but there’s no way of knowing how far down the water pipe was actually laid.”

    Nevertheless, he adds that there seems to be a lot more disruption, especially in the suburbs, which he says boils down to the increasing demand for fibre and the sheer concentration of underground infrastructure, compared to businesses areas. But it is also because of the proliferation of fibre companies, some of which have little experience.

    So, what about the new fibre company with less than three years in the business that could be operating in your suburb?

    Says Sha: “I can’t say for certain that the process they are following is as robust as what we follow… We x-ray each road that we build on. We don’t just go with what the utility service providers tell us. But even then there are no guarantees.

    “What you need to remember is that [many of these FTTH providers] need to build the fibre network as cheaply as possible in order to make the business case work. Something is bound to break when you’re building it as cheaply as some of them are doing it.”

    Damage to roads and pavements

    Environmental sciences lecturer at the Unisa Tracey McKay, says another problem with fibre is the state in which roads and pavements are left in the aftermath. Fibre companies seldom return them to the state they were found in. In addition, she says it seems each fibre company gets permission to dig, so the same set of pavements is dug up several times.

    “The roads are dug up and left open so water can penetrate the subsurface,” she says. “It’s a serious situation because it compromises the strength of the road, which is often badly replaced (you see compressions/depressions developing in the road) or not replaced at all in the case of pavements.

    Reshaad Sha
    Reshaad Sha

    “The companies appear to be taking advantage of the fact that there is a jurisdiction issue over pavements between City Parks and the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) and because of this, neither JRA nor City Parks is overseeing the repair of the pavements, thus, with no oversight, costly repairing/reinstatement doesn’t happen.”

    McKay suggests that companies use trenchless or no dig technology, which produces less waste, less disruption and generates better, more skilled jobs.

    • This piece was originally published on Moneyweb and is used here with permission
    City Parks Dark Fibre Africa DFA Johannesburg Roads Agency JRA Reshaad Sha
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleBitcoin may fail, but the blockchain will live on
    Next Article Uber welcomes ‘tough’ SA transport law

    Related Posts

    Moves afoot to fix Eskom’s debt problem

    4 July 2022

    Audi South Africa to offer free connectivity upgrades

    4 July 2022

    Shock fuel price increase announced

    4 July 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    The MSP value proposition has evolved – here’s why it matters

    4 July 2022

    Presenting the cloud finance in South Africa survey with AWCape and Sage

    4 July 2022

    The Equiano cable has landed

    4 July 2022
    Opinion

    South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

    4 July 2022

    Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

    21 June 2022

    Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

    13 June 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.