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

      Analysis | Rain muddies the waters with approach to Telkom

      11 August 2022

      Rain wants to merge with Telkom: asks to pitch proposal to board

      11 August 2022

      Rain lashed by Takeover Regulation Panel over Telkom statement

      11 August 2022

      Largest SA telecoms operators launch new industry association

      11 August 2022

      MTN shares climb on robust Nigeria, SA performance

      11 August 2022
    • World

      Gaming industry’s fortunes fade as pandemic ends

      11 August 2022

      Disney tops Netflix in streaming subscribers

      11 August 2022

      Jumia says it’s past peak losses, shares jump

      10 August 2022

      Elon Musk sells $6.9-billion of Tesla to avoid Twitter fire sale

      10 August 2022

      Nvidia issues profit warning on slump in demand for graphics cards

      8 August 2022
    • In-depth

      African unicorn Flutterwave battles fires on multiple fronts

      11 August 2022

      The length of Earth’s days has been increasing – and no one knows why

      7 August 2022

      As Facebook fades, the Mad Men of advertising stage a comeback

      2 August 2022

      Crypto breaks the rules. That’s the point

      27 July 2022

      E-mail scams are getting chillingly personal

      17 July 2022
    • Podcasts

      Qush on infosec: why prevention is always better than cure

      11 August 2022

      e4’s Adri Führi on encouraging more women into tech careers

      10 August 2022

      How South Africa can woo more women into tech

      4 August 2022

      Book and check-in via WhatsApp? FlySafair is on it

      28 July 2022

      Interview: Why Dell’s next-gen PowerEdge servers change the game

      28 July 2022
    • Opinion

      SIU seeks to set aside R215-million IT tender

      19 July 2022

      No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

      11 July 2022

      Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

      8 July 2022

      South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

      4 July 2022

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 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

    Analysis | Rain muddies the waters with approach to Telkom

    11 August 2022

    Rain wants to merge with Telkom: asks to pitch proposal to board

    11 August 2022

    Rain lashed by Takeover Regulation Panel over Telkom statement

    11 August 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    Pricing Beyond CMYK: printers answer the FAQs

    11 August 2022

    How secure is your cloud?

    10 August 2022

    5 ways to make attack-path management more manageable

    10 August 2022
    Opinion

    SIU seeks to set aside R215-million IT tender

    19 July 2022

    No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

    11 July 2022

    Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

    8 July 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.