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

      Fixing SA’s power crisis is not complex: it simply takes the will to do better

      12 August 2022

      Consortium makes unsolicited bid for state’s 40% stake in Telkom

      12 August 2022

      Actually, solar users should pay more to access the grid – here’s why

      12 August 2022

      Telkom says MTN talks remain on track

      12 August 2022

      Analysis | Rain muddies the waters with approach to Telkom

      11 August 2022
    • World

      Tencent woes mount, even after $560-billion selloff

      12 August 2022

      Huawei just booked its first sales rise since US blacklisting

      12 August 2022

      Apple remains upbeat about iPhone sales even as Android world suffers

      12 August 2022

      Ether at two-month high as upgrade to blockchain passes major test

      12 August 2022

      Gaming industry’s fortunes fade as pandemic ends

      11 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

      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

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

      13 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»Rural broadband: why it’s so hard to do

    Rural broadband: why it’s so hard to do

    News By Editor14 March 2012
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    The lack of fibre-optic transmission networks outside SA’s main urban centres could prove a huge stumbling block to rolling out next-generation long-term evolution (LTE) networks in rural areas and add significant costs for operators wanting to meet roll-out obligations for these networks.

    Richard Morse, group technology executive at Dimension Data subsidiary Plessey, says there is a desperate need for more fibre infrastructure in rural areas because microwave technology is simply not good enough to support the sorts of speeds and latencies that consumers will demand from LTE networks, which will eventually offer download speeds in excess of 1Gbit/s.

    “When you start thinking about how you’re going to get that data back from multiple towers to a central location, you realise that new [fibre] infrastructure has to be built,” Morse says.

    In large parts of SA, even in densely populated rural areas like the outlying areas of KwaZulu-Natal, there is very little fibre in the ground to provide backhaul to next-generation radio access networks, he adds. And it’s simply too expensive for one operator to absorb the cost of building this network, which Morse estimates could cost more than US$10bn (R75bn).

    Government, through the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), wants companies that are successful in bidding for spectrum that is suitable for building LTE networks in rural areas to provide 70% geographic coverage, but without fibre to connect the radio access network operators won’t be able to offer the speeds consumers will get in urban areas.

    “The objective is to have high-speed broadband in rural areas and that means the same infrastructure in urban areas has to be deployed in rural areas,” he says. But international research shows that as much as 70% of the network costs for new operators are in establishing backhaul links. “There’s a reason why the current operators don’t have fast 3G services all over the rural areas and that’s because the backhaul infrastructure isn’t there to support it.”

    Though the incumbent operators make extensive use of microwave technology for backhaul, especially in more remote parts of the country, it’s simply not suited to next-generation wireless broadband networks, he adds. Microwave should only be used to connect onto fibre backhaul as quickly as possible as more than one or two “hops” between microwave transmission towers means network latency becomes too high. Microwave is also affected by adverse weather conditions.

    One solution to the problem is infrastructure sharing, Morse says, where components of the network, including the active radio access segments, are pooled by multiple players to reduce costs.

    He believes there is scope for companies with access to spectrum suitable to LTE — including Sentech, Neotel and iBurst parent Wireless Business Solutions — to work with successful new spectrum licensees and pool their resources to build a national LTE network.

    “The concept of radio access network sharing is an essential part of the planning of any prospective market entrant,” Morse says. “Plessey has been putting the R&D into laying the groundwork to enable that sort of sharing in reality.”  — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral

    • Image: Keoni Cabral/Flickr
    • Subscribe to our free daily newsletter
    • Follow us on Twitter or on Google+ or on Facebook
    • Visit our sister website, SportsCentral (still in beta)
    Didata Dimension Data iBurst Neotel Plessey Richard Morse Sentech WBS Wireless Business Solutions
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleEOH: the little company that could
    Next Article Vodacom’s BlackBerry data hog problem solved?

    Related Posts

    Fixing SA’s power crisis is not complex: it simply takes the will to do better

    12 August 2022

    Consortium makes unsolicited bid for state’s 40% stake in Telkom

    12 August 2022

    Actually, solar users should pay more to access the grid – here’s why

    12 August 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    Get your brand in front of TechCentral’s amazing audience

    12 August 2022

    Pricing Beyond CMYK: printers answer the FAQs

    11 August 2022

    How secure is your cloud?

    10 August 2022
    Opinion

    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

    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.