Dimension Data subsidiary Plessey has won a R20m contract to install and maintain 11 regeneration sites on Dark Fibre Africa’s fibre cable linking Empangeni on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast and Pretoria in Gauteng.

Plessey chief operating officer Howard Earley says the sites will house equipment that will pick up any data on the fibre and rebroadcast it using a booster to make sure that data degradation doesn’t occur.

“The fibre is more than 400km long. If you just pump data down the line, you will get a garbled mess out the other end. But the regeneration sites will basically boost the data so what you put in, you get out at the end,” he says.

The sites will be hosted at Bronkhorstspruit, Middelburg, Hendrina, Ermelo, Panbult, Piet Retief, Paulpietersburg, Vryheid, Zulu Rock, Melmoth and Empangeni.

Earley says Plessey will build the sites, install and maintain the equipment, and ensure that containers are air-conditioned and are properly secured.

The cable system carries traffic from the Seacom submarine cable to Gauteng.

Each site will have mains power, a back-up generator and battery back-up facilities, and the company says the sites should have 99,95% uptime.

Plessey will monitor each site from its network operations centre in Midrand and will also station technicians along the route to carry out preventative maintenance and respond to any incidents.

Earley says the company has a 15-year contract with Dark Fibre Africa to provide space and power within each of the 11 sites. — Staff reporter, TechCentral