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ADOPTING THE SAAS MODEL

MUDDLED MIGRATION

INNOvATION fOR sERvIcE DELIvERy

AchIEvING RURAL bROADbAND

INfRAcO PRIORITIZEsRURAL bROADbAND

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ARTHuR GOLDSTuCk

ARTHuR GOLDSTuCk

uNDERSTANDING DTT

uNDERSTANDING DTT

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DTT: Tanzanian

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EditorialEditorial

Editorial directorNkhume Kudzingana

associate Editorrobert Nkuna

Contributing JournalistsSteven Maubane, Eugene Morokolo and Staff reporters

opinion Contributorstinyiko Baloyi

Editing and Proof reading: Makatilemedia

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Dear readers and contributors

We trust that you have enjoyed the pre-vious editions of Digital Focus. Once again, we bring to you another exciting and informative edition. In this edition, we continue to focus on cutting-edge issues and trends in the broader infor-mation and communication technology sector.

Our in-house journalists and opin-ion contributors are always primed and dedicated to give you the best read. Digital Focus is more than just a publi-cation, we fancy ourselves as a platform for cross pollination of ideas.

No idea is a wrong idea, until it is proven otherwise. In a big sector like this, there is no one who has solutions to all the challenges we face.

Working together we can place the ICT sector in its rightful place both as a standalone and an anchor for develop-ment in other sectors.

In this edition, we deal with the digital migration policy and regulatory issues. The DTT process is one of the major catalysts of re-industriali-sation in South Africa.

Government has taken a decision to support the manu-facturing of Set-Top-Boxes in South Africa as an attempt to revive the dwin-dling electronics industry, which faces stiff competition

from goods originating in east Asia and other parts of the world.

Given its immense potential to stimulate local economic development through local manufacturing and local content requirements, every endeavour has to be made to make DTT a success.

Like other stakeholders, we wel-come the commitment made by Minister Yunus Carrim to get the DTT process back on track.

In the interest of promoting the exchange of information on DTT, this edition includes an article on the latest developments in Tanzania, one of the few African countries that are consid-ered leaders in the implementation of digital migration. Tanzania has made significant strides towards this end, notwithstanding the policy, regulato-ry, technical and other challenges that have been encountered hitherto.

We also tackle other exciting topics ranging from innovation in government, report from the Govtech conference to highlighting technological trends in the sector as a whole.

Up to now, we have been distrib-uting over 2000 copies to selected

clients in the industry and the demand keeps on increasing. We expect that the demand will increase more when we start selling the magazine in some of the big retail stores.

Preparations for a full com-mercial launch are underway.

Please take your time, relax and enjoy your read.

Nkhume Kudzingana


DigitalFocusContents

Third Edition Feb/Mar 2014 ∆ Issue 3

Africa must up its ante ...............................................................6-9

Tanzania frees the airwaves .................................................10-12

All you need is now ...................................................................14-15

City fathers can ease fibre deployment ...........................16-17

Help us, manuel pleads ............................................................18-19

Govtech report back .................................................................20-23

All is well at USAASA, says chair .........................................24-26

The world is an oyster for new kid on the block ............28-29

Gauteng government goes mobile ......................................30-31

Get on the bus ............................................................................32-34

When rural goes urban .............................................................36-37

More news is good news ........................................................38-39

Rural development departments gets techno savvy ....40-41

P6

P10

P38

africa must up its ante

tanzania frees the airwaves

GoVtECH report Back

P20

More news is good news

P32Get on the bus


South Africa launched the first trial of the digital ter-restrial broadcasting ser-vice on 1 November 2008, which was initially sched-

uled to be concluded two years later. Today, close to five years since the

start of the trial, the public offering of digital terrestrial television (DTT) has

not commenced. It is also about seven years

since countries in Region 1 of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) signed the Geneva Agreement (GE-06) to pave way for the migration of the analogue televi-sion services to the digital platform.

The GE-06 was signed in 2006 by all

countries in Africa and Europe; Russia and Iran, collectively referred to as Region 1 of the ITU. Members to the agreement are required to conclude the migration process by June 2015.

Countries that continue to broad-cast analogue services after the switch-over deadline will not receive protection from the ITU should there

DTT

AFRICA MUSt UP itS ANTE

With the gains for migration from analogue to digital

television almost common knowledge by

now, it remains a mystery why the continent,

South africa included, has still

not moved to reap the benefits


be destructive interference from digi-tal services of neighbouring countries.

All countries in Europe have conclud-ed their migration initiatives while the majority of countries in Africa are still in their planning stages. While South Africa has started to roll out DTT, uncertainty around the manufacturing and distribution of set top boxes (STBs) remains a mammoth hurdle.

Digital STBs are required by owners of analogue television sets to convert the digital signal back to analogue. An alternative will be for consumers who have analogue television sets to replace them with digital TV sets, at a cost.

Disparities between Europe and Africa can largely be attributed to the lack of adequate resources in a num-ber of countries in Africa to fund the migration process as well as policy and regulatory uncertainties around DTT.

In Southern Africa, in particular, the delay is also attributable to a year-long indecision about the DTT transmission standard to be adopted. In 2010, South Africa, Angola and Botswana re-opened discussions that had been concluded in the middle of 2009, resulting in fur-ther studies to compare the European

backed Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) standard and the Japanese backed Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting Television (ISDB-T) stan-dard.

As a result of the ensuing discus-sions, countries put their plans on hold until at the fall of 2010 when a meeting of SADC Ministers of communications resolved to adopt a second generation of the EU backed DVB standard (DVB-T2), which is more robust than the initial DVB-T standard.

DVB-T2 also has capabilities to carry mobile television by integrating various modulation schemes. Integrated modu-lation schemes allow different signals, on the same multiplex, to be directed to different receivers such as fixed televi-sion sets and mobile television devices.

In South Africa uncertainty in the DTT migration programme is further compounded by disagreements among the main broadcasters: SABC, e-TV and Multichoice, around the inclusion of a set top box control mechanism, initially proposed in government policy as a tool to protect subsidised boxes from being used in other countries.

Meeting the 2015 deadline does not

seem possible for most African coun-tries; including South Africa, which has been at the forefront of the DTT migra-tion process.

However, irrespective of the delays, Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) is still relevant. Potential benefits of digital migration still far outweigh the losses caused by the delays. Realising the digital dividend remains a central reason for digital migration.

As set out in ITU’s GE-06, digital migration will lead to the release of a significant portion of the radio frequen-cy spectrum held by existing broadcast-ers for further licensing of new digital terrestrial television services, mobile television, digital radio and mobile broadband.

Digital technologies, including robust transmission and compression systems, enable the broadcasting of as many television or radio channels on the same spectrum that is currently used to broadcast one channel.

In the table below, we highlight the frequency bands that have been set aside for migration, including the potential use of each band.

lEadEr

No Frequency band Future uses Potential benefits

1 VHF 174-230 To be set aside for digital radio and other related television standards like the Korean digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB)

Will yield around three multiplexes, each capable of carrying more than five TV and a significantly higher number of radio channels.

2 UHF 470-790 To be used for further terrestrial televi-sion, although with the advent of DVB-T2 standard, and upgrade from the initial DVB, more capacity can be allocated for mobile broadband.

Around eight multiplexes will be created each carrying more than five television and a significantly higher number of radio channels.

3 UHF 790-862 This will be set aside for mobile broad-band services.

The 72MHz will be re-assigned and licensed for high speed internet networks to accelerate universal service and access.


DTT will be complemented by other digital broadcasting services outside the bands mentioned above. These include satellite radio and related tele-vision services in the L-band (1452–1492-MHz) which was last used by the now defunct satellite radio service, World Space.

Like other new digital radio services, the L-band currently does not enjoy economies of scale because it requires its own receiver equipment. It is not compatible with existing radio receiv-ers, but it cannot be discounted for future transnational broadcasting.

The same goes for another new digital radio standard, Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM), which seeks to rev-olutionise the lower AM/MW and FM frequency bands. DRM will increase the capacity of these bands to broadcast more channels than their current capa-bilities.

While it will take time for some of these technologies to make an impact, South Africa and indeed the rest of the continent should always be forward-looking. With the FM band already congested, there is a need for forward-looking policy and regulato-ry interventions to investigate future opportunities.

In the short term, digital radio will be accommodated as part of DTT bou-quets, a platform known as Digital Terrestrial Television Radio (DTTR), although this is commercially not sustainable as the viability of radio depends on mobility.

DTTR is suitable for simulcasting which allows the same signal that is broadcast on FM to be streamed on the DTT network. There are no extra costs as the same content is broadcast on both FM and television platforms.

Initially, DTTR will depend on the SABC, e-TV and M-Net who control the available multiplexes although regula-tory interventions may be needed to ensure fairness and competition.

Importantly, the SABC will be the main beneficiary as DTTR will allow its African language services, still con-fined to their old Bantustan footprint, to be received nationwide, although this will be confined to reception via television devices.

Broadband will also contribute to

the evolution of television and radio services through new television broad-cast services such as IPTV, Video-on-Demand, Over the Top Television (OTT) services and other innovations that combine DTT and broadband to create hybrid platforms.

The recent launch of two news channels, SABCN and ANN7, on Multichoice’s satellite platform means that digital satellite television will con-tinue to grow, co-existing with DTT. New free-to-air satellite broadcasting platforms such as Sentech’s Freevision and Platco Digital’s OpenView are also bringing much needed choice to South Africa’s digital satellite television mar-ket.

As one of the policy outcomes, dig-ital migration will increase access, improve the quality of services and lower the costs of infrastructure and services, and therefore, contribute towards an inclusive information soci-ety.

In order to unlock the benefits, a number of critical interventions are needed:

• At present, political will is the sin-gle biggest requirement for DTT to happen. Political will is about the commitment of government to do the right thing with available resources. It calls for a focused leadership with a drive to bring on board all stakeholders to work together for the common good of the country and the continent.

• Policy and regulatory clarity is another pillar of the migration process, and this emanates from political will. The policy maker and the regulator have a partic-ular responsibility to lead the migration process. A transparent and predictable policy regime has been absent, especially in recent years. Unpredictable and unex-plained policy changes create uncertainties and undue conflict between the policy and regulato-ry institutions on one hand and industry on the other hand. Pol-icy and regulatory interventions should be based on evidence and global benchmarking.

• Industry, as well, should acknowl-edge the existence of varied and

competing interests and thus work with government to achieve the required balance. It is not pos-sible for winners to take all; there should be trade-offs. This calls for a speedy resolution of the outstanding issue regarding the inclusion of a set top box control mechanism which has been at the centre of disagreements between different industry players.

African countries should start pre-paring for a possibility of not meeting the June 2015 deadline by agreeing to protect each other’s analogue services, without having to renounce and amend the Geneva Agreement.

Renouncing the agreement will take a year as the ITU is required to revise its frequency plans before a country can opt out of the agreement. Amending the agreement will need another Regional Radio Conference which will take time to convene as it will involve all African countries, the whole of Europe, Russia and Iran.

Proactive steps are needed to achieve this. African countries can still implement a co-ordinated migration

dtt


process even after the expiry of the 2015 deadline.

On the side bar, are some of the critical issues that need to be attended to before the commencement of pub-lic DTT. This is a checklist that should guide the DTT project:

Re-stating policy goals: DTT is at the centre of a watershed transforma-tion of the entire electronic communi-cations sector, with far reaching social and economic benefits.

There is a need for government to restate the underlying policy priorities that must guide the digital migration process. Decisions should benchmarked against a range of competing policy priorities such as achieving univer-sal access, promoting innovation and investments, enabling competition and economic empowerment, and reviving the electronics industry.

Technical standards: The delay in the resolution of the discussion on the set –top-box control mechanism is not in the interest of the DTT and the commu-nications sector in general.

The Minister may be facilitating dis-cussions among broadcasters to reach

an agreement in the interest of DTT, but in future, discussions of this nature should be resolved through public pol-icy processes. Public consultations are needed to enhance the credibility of policy decisions.

Industrialisation: Government has committed to use the DTT opportunity to rebuild the electronics manufactur-ing industry. It is over five years since the Department of Communications announced that it will subsidise close to Five (5) million set-top-boxes, targeting indigent households.

Initially, the cost of the subsidy was estimated at over R 2 billion, and the figure might have changed due to sup-ply and demand changes in the local and global electronics markets.

Government needs to assess the viability of the planned industrial pro-gramme. A comprehensive plan will ensure that other measures such as trade and industry instruments are introduced to ensure that the industri-alisation effort does not collapse after the subsidisation programme.

Subsidy scheme: To increase the uptake of DTT government has com-

mitted to subsidise indigent TV own-ing households. However, the subsidy mechanism – the identification of indi-gent households - remains uncertain.

Identifying indigent households will be a daunting task requiring a workable plan that will not add further complica-tions to an already troubled process. Clarity on the definition of indigent communities and the distribution mech-anism for STBs is therefore critical.

Phased in rollout plan: A number of countries in Europe have rolled out DTT in a phased manner. In the UK for example, DTT was implemented from one region to another, allowing stake-holders in the Digital UK coalition of broadcasters and other role players to ensure that possible problems, includ-ing signal quality and STB functionality, are addressed in advance.

The availability of a radio signal does not mean that DTT has taken place. DTT only happens when communities or households receive DTT services. Only then can the analogue signal be switched off. A detailed rollout plan, including the time it will take to dis-tribute STBs and test reception in each municipality, district or province, will speed up the migration process.

Licensing the digital dividend: Releasing the digital dividend is one of the goals of the migration process. Government should clarify its plan regarding the allocation of digital divi-dend among competing demands. A por-tion of the dividend could be licensed in advance to raise additional funding from electronic communications ser-vices.

Since 2006, ICASA has been seized with developing a regulatory model to licence high demand spectrum in various radio frequency bands. These efforts have been met with varied responses from the incumbent operators and the services that were licensed in 2009 after the conversion of the old VANS licences. There is no consensus on the way forward, as the newly licensed enti-ties are opposed to the use of auctions which, in their view, will favour the big operators. Licensing the digital divi-dend should therefore be informed by a long term spectrum policy to address the immediate needs while considerate of the future demands.

dtt


The Tanzanian broadcasting landscape has undergone remarkable change from its colonial foundation in the 1950s.

From the early days of the first radio station Voice of Dar Es Salaam, which initially covered only some parts of the city, through to the birth in 1956 of Tanganyika Broadcasting Corpo-ration and the establishment later in 1965 of Radio Tanzania Dar Es Salaam to the present, things have gone well for the local industry.

By 1993, there was only one public radio station in Tanzania. The landscape continued to change with the liberalisa-tion of the broadcasting industry, open-ing the market to multiple players. Fol-lowing the liberalisation of the industry, the sector has witnessed a tremendous growth from one Radio and Television Stations in 1993 to 93 radio stations and 28 television stations nationwide. Figure 1 below, highlights strides that have been made to open to Tanzanian broadcasting market to competition.

As in other African countries, the liberalisation of the analogue television

and radio markets were followed by the advent of digital television and, to an extent, digital radio services. Following the adoption of digital terrestrial tele-vision standards in Africa and Europe in 2006, Tanzania started to plan for the migration of its analogue television

services to a new digital platform. Preparations for digital broad-

casting in Tanzania have gone through various stages, including the adoption of a new licensing framework, various phases of public consultation, prom-ulgation of DTT regulations, licensing

TANZANIA FrEES tHE airWaVES

From just one radio station after independence, the east african nation has allowed liberal entry into the broadcast industry and now leads the Continent in meeting the deadline to digital conversion by 2015

oPINIoNBy Staff Reporter

Trend of Broadcasting Sector.


of radio frequency spectrum, and the start of phased in simulcasting in 2012.

The rollout of digital television services started in the main town, the capital city, Dar Es Salaam. As of November 2013, other cities, including Arusha, Moshi, Mwanza, Dodoma, Tanga and Mbeya had already switched off the analogue transmitters. It is expected that by June 2014 all remaining ana-logue transmitters will be switched off. Figure 2 below indicate the rollout progress in different cities across the country.

The success of the migration pro-cess is largely attributed to foresight and inclusive planning led by the com-munications regulator, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA). Political will and government support also enabled stakeholders to meet their obligations within time frames.

In a country with many socio-eco-nomic needs, financing DTT was always bound to be a challenge. Tanzania off-set potential financial challenges by encouraging Public Private Partner-

oPiNioN

President Jakaya Kikwete, of the United Republic of Tanzania, launching the DTT public awareness campaign.

The Status of Digital Terrestrial Television Roll out in Tanzania


ships, especially between the public broadcaster, the Tanzanian Broadcast-ing Corporation (TBC) and Chinese media company, Smart TV, to co-oper-ate on signal distribution. Two addition-al signal distributors were launched by consortia involving foreign and local investors. Consumer education also played a role in mobilising ordinary peo-ple and local businesses to participate in the DTT programme. Figure 3 below showcases one of the public awareness campaigns.

But while the Tanzanian model is rated as one of the pioneers in Afri-ca, it has had its own constraints and challenges. Since its commencement in 2006, the digital migration has not progressed smoothly. Key challenges identified include the lack of adequate content to stimulate public interest, the licensing framework for frequen-cies and customer related challenges.

With regard to content, Content Service Providers were required to run their analogue transmission sites at a cost while at the same time paying transmission fee to frequency network operators. In many instances, the cost charged by network operators was too high for the Content Service Providers to meet. Adding to the network costs was the absence of premium content

to drive customer uptake, particularly as DTT also had to compete for con-tent with Pay TV services.

At a technical level, there were challenges related to poor signal due to uneven topographi-cal realities. This may be addressed by the instal-lation of additional trans-mitters within the same area, which comes with additional costs. Poor power supply and expen-sive access to land for transmitters also did not help the situation.

One of the advantages of digital broadcasting is the increased number of channels. This allows a company to have more than one channel irrespec-tive of whether it is a free to air or sub-scription television services.

In this context, various broadcast-ers can provide multichannel in one fre-quency, previously used to carry one channel. This is further complicated by the separation of licenses between content providers and frequency net-work operators, leading to multiple parties having to enter cross cutting agreements. Added to this is the incli-

nation of frequency network opera-tors to prefer lucrative cities at the expense of under-serviced rural areas. This defeats one of the critical goals of digital broadcasting – universal access.

But notwithstanding these and other challenges, the Tanzanian Com-munications Regulatory Authority is still adamant that Tanzania will meet the international deadline for analogue switch – off in mid-2015.

This article was compiled by Digital Focus based on the information sup-plied by the Tanzanian Communica-tions Regulatory Authority, TCRA.

Public awareness Campaigns in diferent parts of the Country.

oPiNioN


Amid the dauntingly huge volumes of digitised data now in existence around the world, it is easy for companies to go off-track

in their attempts to harness Big Data. Misconceptions abound about the

meaning of the term Big Data and the approaches that should be taken to derive business value from it.

Big Data describes much more than large amounts of historical data resid-ing in enterprise databases.

More importantly, Big Data also encompasses new data emerging every second from multiple external courses, including email, mobile and social media and it is here that busi-ness should be looking for strategic insights.

Using BI tools to analyse historical data to make forward-looking deci-sions will often lead to inaccurate con-clusions. The truly valuable informa-tion resides outside the organisation in the ‘real world’, where customers are

networking and sharing on an unprece-dented scale.

Big Data management is about handling the growing volumes, vari-ety, velocity and complexity of global data to determine what customers are saying at a particular juncture - now, how market sentiments are changing and how business should react. Trends are key to understanding customer behaviour. So, effective use of Big Data depends on finding the ‘now’ in structured and unstructured data.

Social media analysis is key To track and process the ‘now’, busi-nesses have to integrate social media into their BI. Social media allows busi-ness to remain in touch with what cus-tomers and their networks are saying about both the business and its com-petitors. It allows business to con-sider external factors that will impact market behaviour. It allows them to track trends within networks likely to influence their customers’ future buy-

ing patterns. For example, if a custom-er’s social network is actively praising a rival telecoms service provider, and you’re aware that the customer is due for an upgrade soon, you can deduce that there is a chance you may lose the customer to the rival network and take steps to make a compelling offer to the customer.

This is where the influence of velocity comes in – it’s about the speed at which market forces change and the speed at which businesses can react accordingly. Businesses that rely on historical data to make forward-look-ing decisions cannot hope to compete effectively.

With advanced Big Data tools incorporated into their BI systems, businesses are able to identify chang-es in the market in near-real time and change their strategy accordingly.

Inasmuch as the aim of BI is still to deliver a good customer experi-ence, optimise product development and make sound business decisions,

oPINIoN


“businesses need to look beyond their own datasets to assess what customer experience means in the context of how people live and to understand their own operations as part of a global context.

Including social media into BI also allows business to extend the incor-poration of data generated by mobile into the [BI] mix. With vast numbers of customers accessing social media via their smart mobile devices, business is able to increase its understanding beyond their networks and sentiments to include geographical data too.

Businesses need look at this valu-able data from various sources in order to profile individual clients, discover what drives them, and predict what they might do in future.

Beginning the journeyTo do so, businesses do not have to embark on extensive and costly restruc-turing of their data warehouses and BI systems. They can start small, by integrating social media APIs into the

BI suite to gain immediate insights into key questions. Analysing data in social media platforms doesn’t necessarily mean you have to analyse all the data – you can tap into only what is relevant to your business to understand the now of your environment and what you need to react to. This may be as simple as know-ing how many people have liked your page, blogged about you or tweeted about your product. Determining what component of this unstructured data-set is relevant to your business requires careful strategic planning, though.Enterprises need to be asking: ‘What can BI do to create survival mechanisms and contribute to our strategy? What will our questions be?’

By asking these questions, enter-prises will identify what sources they want to tap into and how they wish to analyse and present the resulting infor-mation.

Dlamini is Business Development Manager of LGR Telecommunications

ALL YoU NEED IS NoW Using Big data effectively means sifting through a wealth of historical data in pursuit of strictly what is relevant at a certain moment of the business cycle, says Ayanda Dlamini

oPiNioN

Big data management is about handling the growing volumes, variety, velocity and complexity of global data to determine what customers are saying at a particular juncture


The recent announcement by Vodacom that it will acquire Neotel, South Africa’s second network operator only serves to confirm the era of conver-

gence that is confronting the local tele-communications sector.

Mobile operators are consolidating their operations by looking to enter the fixed line business and broaden their offerings. Technology advancements as well as declining voice revenues and the growth of video and data services largely drive this.

During the recent Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH) 2013 conference held in the cradle of humankind, outside Mogale City, the many speakers put the spotlight on the need for fibre oper-ators to closely co-operate with one another and the public sector when deploying new fibre infrastructure.

It is commonly accepted that the international sub-marine cable market has experienced significant competi-tion and prices have probably bottomed out for the foreseeable future. Telkom has largely dominated the terrestrial fibre market segment until recently when Broadband Infraco was set up to compete in this market segment using the aerial fibre assets that were acquired from Eskom and Transnet. Other players such as Dark Fibre Africa have built specific routes to service the Johannesburg/Pretoria – Durban routes. Liquid Telecoms has recently unveiled its cross border fibre network linking Johannesburg to Harare through the Beit-Bridge border post along the N1 highway.

However the most exciting announcement perhaps came from FibreCo, a new fibre operator backed by Convergence Partners who announced that they have made significant pro-gress in constructing their 12,000 km of long distance fibre to link the major commercial centers of Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. The first leg connecting Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, East London and Cape Town has just recently been lit up. This new long distance fibre network will provide an alternative to Telkom, NLD and Broadband Infraco’s networks and provide resiliency and redundancy on

oPINIoNBy Tinyiko Baloyi

City Fathers Can Ease Fibre

Deployment Municipalities hold the key to

infrastructure sharing for metro fibre roll-out

in their areas of jurisdiction


oPiNioN

those routes. Despite all the frenzy to deploy long

distance and municipal fibre networks in South Africa’s major metros, few res-idents have been able to get connected through FTTH networks The main rea-son for this is because prices for metro fibre deployment continues to be very high per house passed while access links continue to be unrealistic for most dwelling/housing units. The cost to lease these fibre networks remains astronomical and makes it difficult to build a sustainable business case for FTTH services. The deployment of FTTH networks is still very limited and focused on gated communities within SA’s main commercial hubs.

Deploying fibre networks is expen-sive business. It is crucial for operators to recognise the importance of shar-ing infrastructure and co-investment to reduce costs. The current trend of duplicating infrastructure and the severe lack of Co-ordinated planning and collaboration is exacerbating the problem.

In order to overcome this challenge, the majority of ISPs and fibre opera-tors are focused on serving the more commercially viable markets such as large enterprises, office parks and gated communities. The business case for deploying FTTH or FTTB has also not been communicated clearly by the telecoms industry to justify the added costs that customers have to incur to get fibre connectivity. There is also very little by way of bundling of Vid-eo-on-Demand or IPTV services that will help improve the appeal for fibre access. It is clear that customers are not willing to pay more for an Internet

connection whose main selling point is simply higher speed.

It is commonly acknowledged that fibre networks and broadband access have become key drivers of econom-ic development. Some studies indicate that a 10% broadband penetration can result in an increase of 1,4% on GDP. Municipalities should therefore incorporate broadband access as one of the key infrastructure pillars along-side water, electricity and roads. It is encouraging that the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission (PICC) has included SIP 15, which focuses on ICT infrastruc-ture among SA’s strategic infrastruc-ture projects. Fibre networks can also help municipalities to deal with public safety through providing a high-speed network for IP surveillance.

The challenges that municipalities still pose to the deployment of fibre include:

- Municipal requirements for granting way-leaves are often inconsistent

- Long delays in processing of way-leave applications

- Municipal requirements are often onerous and add signifi-cant costs to the deployment of fibre networks

- Municipalities do not follow best practice frameworks and procedures when regulating the deployment of fibre networks.

- Many municipalities and utili-ties still have a “not in my back-yard” attitude towards fibre deployments.

- Municipalities keep poor records on buried infrastruc-

ture like water, sewer and elec-tric infrastructure witch results in disruption of services during FTTH deployments

Partnering with municipalities through public private partnerships (PPP) still appears to be the most feasi-ble way of stimulating the deployment of FTTH in South Africa. Municipalities can play a crucial role in metro fibre deployments, as they own the servi-tudes that are so crucial for the deploy-ment of fibre networks.

They also control the permitting processes that FTTH deployments are required to follow.

Municipalities can also serve as anchor customers on these fibre net-works to improve the business case for deploying metro fibre networks. Having said this, it is crucial for munic-ipalities to discourage the duplication of infrastructure by developing mas-ter-plans for ducting infrastructure and involving all interested parties through a transparent and open process. Such master-plans should discourage dupli-cation of infrastructure and provide a co-ordinated and planned approach to the deployment of fibre.

Municipalities are best placed to enforce duct sharing and open access networks. Due to the long-term nature of fibre investments, Municipalities are also better positioned to partially fund duct infrastructure for fibre by raising a 10 – 15 year municipal infrastructure bond. Municipalities can recover the cost of deploying fibre ducts over time by leasing it to operators. Once the investment has been recovered, fibre can become a revenue generator for municipalities.

Municipalities need to adopt new standards and by-laws that will man-date the deployment of fibre ducting in all new roads and building projects. This will significantly reduce the cost of deploying fibre for new residential developments.

There are also opportunities to use new technologies that lower the cost of deploying fibre such as laying fibre on existing sewer and storm water pipelines or aerial fibre deploy-ments on power pylons.

A map of FibreCo networkThe first phase of the FibreCo network rollout will link South Africa’s major cities with a core ring of fibre.


Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel has chal-lenged the technology industry to help South Africa gain lost ground in

narrowing the digital divide and to hold itself accountable for achieving this goal. He said this at the 2013 Govtech conference in Cape Town.

Manuel was delivering the open-ing address at the State Information Technology Agency’s (SITA) 8th annual conference for organisations involved in delivering ICT solutions to the Public Service.

“If we look at internet penetration in South Africa, relative to Africa, we used to be way out ahead, but we aren’t there any longer,” he said. “I am passion-ate about the idea of a Silicon Valley in South Africa and am engaging with South Africans based in Silicon Valley about this.”

Addressing the delegates, the min-ister of public service and administra-tion Lindiwe Sisulu asked what tech-nology has done in addressing service delivery challenges. “If we are to accept that Information Communication Technologies are a critical enabler for

socio-economic development, have we done enough as a country, both govern-ment and the private sector, to ensure that the benefits of ICTs are accessible to all our people, not just those in the urban areas, but also including the ordi-nary folk in rural homesteads?”

Manuel acknowledged the positives, such as the 2011 Census and the subse-quent accessibility of these statistics, as well as the upcoming ability to track the National Plan via a mobile device. He also called out advances in mobile technology, the potential of the Meraka Institute, e-government and e-cabinet advances and the commitment to open source that have subsequently been lost. ““Techies, why have you allowed this to slip on your watch?” he asked. “And what will you help us do to catch up?”

SITA CEO Freeman Nomvulo said the industry needed to take questions posed by both Manuel and Sisulu as challenges and help improve service delivery. Nomvulo identified clos-ing the digital divide and the need to reverse our slippage in the global rank-ings regarding e-government, among others, as some of the key challenges

affecting the country. The Govtech del-egates identified Information sharing – multiple versions of the truth and lack of information consolidation; Concerns around Information Security – integra-tion is achievable, but must have the right level of information protection for stakeholders – as among issues that needed immediate attention.

Furthermore, concerns around information security and lack of align-ment amongst business were also raised.

Recommendations to the challeng-es identified include were made. These include educating business about the value of a common ICT approach at all levels of processes, data, applications, and infrastructure. Another was part-nering with both business and strategic vendors to deliver improved services at lower costs,

It was noted that the lack of inno-vation in the public sector was delaying improved service delivery. The reason, according to the delegates, was that government had not invested suffi-ciently, forcing innovation to compete for funding with more essential ser-vices like health.

Government is aware of the need to bridge the digital divide and acknowledges the role industry experts can play towards achieving this goal.

CoNNECTIvITY

Help us, Manuel pleads

By Eugene Morokolo


if we are to accept that information Communication technologies are a critical enabler for socio-economic development, have we done enough as a country,

“

CoNNECtiVity

Minister in the Presidency, Trevor Manuel.


SITA chairman Jerry Vilakazi, said that the successful execution of the National Development Plan (NDP) hing-es on a well-orchestrated, well-imple-mented ICT plan. “The absence of this will negatively impact ordinary citizens by not improving the service delivery which is paramount to their daily lives and well-being,” he said.

What’s more, “ICT in rural areas must be developed to ensure that we do not widen the digital divide,” said Vilakazi. “Thorough research and inno-vation with extensive budget allocation is necessary to accompany the adop-tion of a rural strategic plan for ICT development which takes into account upliftment of the poor through job cre-ation and technology adoption.”

Minister in the Presidency in charge of National Planning Commission, Trevor Manuel, issued a challenge to the IT community to help South Africa gain lost ground in narrowing the digital divide and to hold itself accountable for achieving this.

The minister also warned that although IT is the great leveller, we need to be careful about what we want to achieve to prevent it becoming the great divider. “Rivers are forming where none existed and the gap between you [the audience] and the majority of South Africans widens increasingly. We need to build bridges that everyone can cross.

“And to never allow ourselves to be delayed by silliness again,” he said referring to delays in the landing of

the Seacom Cable. “The landing of six undersea cable systems allows us to take bandwidth to rural area, to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas, rich and poor, black and white, men and women.” But countries such as Kenya and Rwanda have taken our lead on the African continent, he said.

“If we look at internet penetration in South Africa, relative to Africa, we used to be way out ahead, but we aren’t there any longer,” he said. “I am passion-ate about the idea of a Silicon Valley in South Africa and am engaging with South Africans based in Silicon Valley about this,” he said. “I am a believer in the power of IT and have seen the rate of progress around the world during my time as a minister.

Manuel challenged GovTech 2013 to tackle IT’s role in the following eight areas:1. E-government and access to services2. Education3. Protection of privacy and informa-tion4. Healthcare5. Billing6. General information including the next census and e-voting7. Dignity and rights, including identity and an address8. Open source

Minister for the Lindiwe Sisulu, also gave the Keynote address at the gala dinner hosted by EOH.Minister of Public Service and

Administration Lindiwe Sisulu pres-ent at the conference highlighted that the conference was held on the eve of the celebrations of the 20 years of our democracy, and thus beckons innumer-able urgent questions which should be posed today.

She asked: 1. How have the technologies we

have adopted and procured as a state helped to accelerate ser-vice delivery to the masses of our people and to advance the attainment of a better life for all which we spoke about in 1994?

2. If we are to accept that Information Communication Technologies are a critical enabler for socio-econom-ic development, have we done enough as a country, both gov-ernment and the private sector, to ensure that the benefits of ICT’s are accessible to all our people, not just those in the urban areas, but also including the ordinary folk in rural home-steads?

3. What is South Africa’s market share of the global Knowledge-based Economy? Are we produc-ers of knowledge or mere con-sumers? Are we training and pre-paring the necessary work-force of bright young South Africans who will drive the creation of a strong knowledge-based econo-my in our country?

GovTECH REPoRT BACK

TECHNoLoGY FoR SERvICE DELIvERYthe 2013 Sita’s GoVtECH conference highlighted the impor-tance of government buy- in and the eagerness of govern-ment to increase service delivery by deploying technology


4. What is our thinking with regard to a procurement strategy that prioritises locally created appli-cations, software and techno-logical devices? In our sourcing of solutions and applications that are developed in other countries, are we not indirectly exporting South Africa’s jobs to the likes of China, India and the USA, while we desperately need to create employment here at home?

5. Where America has the Silicon Valley, India has its Bangalore One, Mexico has Guadalajara, Malaysia has Cyberjaya. Where is South Africa’s hub for ICT development? Does it exist? Is there a plan to consolidate one?

She added that “We need technologies that can be supported and maintained locally. Therefore, our IT community, as you interact over the rest of Govtech 2013, bear in mind our needs, our con-cerns and deliberate on these”.

Some major themes for 2014Focusing on simplified data centre Paul

Ruinaard - VCE Account Manager said that from now through 2018, a variety of devices, user contexts, and interac-tion paradigms will make “everything everywhere” strategies unachievable. The unintended consequence of bring your own device (BYOD) programs has been to render much more complex (by two or three times, Gartner esti-mates) the size of the mobile work-force, straining both the information technology and the finance organisa-tions. It is recommended that compa-nies better define expectations for employee-owned hardware to balance flexibility with confidentiality and pri-vacy requirements.

Mobile Apps and ApplicationsRuinaard added that according to research through 2014, improved JavaScript performance will begin to push HTML5 and the browser as a main-stream enterprise application develop-ment environment. “Apps will grow and applications will shrink, continuing a trend that has been documented for a while now. The market for creating apps continues to be very fragment-

ed (Gartner estimates that there are over 100 potential tool vendors), and consolidation is not likely to happen in earnest for a while. It is suggested that ‘the next evolution in user experi-ence will be to leverage intent, inferred from emotion and actions, to motivate changes in end-user behavior.”

Some of Gartner’s 10 Strategic Technology Trends For 2013 include The Internet of EverythingThe Internet is expanding into enter-prise assets and consumer items such as cars and televisions.

Hybrid Cloud and IT as Service BrokerGartner suggests that bringing togeth-er personal clouds and external private cloud services is essential. Enterprises should design private cloud services with a hybrid future in mind and make sure future integration/interoperability is possible.

Cloud/Client ArchitectureAs the power and capability of many mobile devices increases, the increased demand on networks, the cost of net-

GoVtECH rEPort BaCK


works, and the need to manage band-width use “creates incentives, in some cases, to minimize the cloud application computing and storage footprint, and to exploit the intelligence and storage of the client device.”

The Era of Personal CloudThe push for more personal cloud tech-nologies will lead to a shift toward ser-vices and away from devices. The type of device one has will be less important, as the personal cloud takes over some of the role that the device has tradition-ally had with multiple devices accessing the personal cloud.

Cyber Security Prof Basie Von Solms a Director at the Centre for Cyber Security at the University of Johannesburg said South African cybercrime set to soar in 2013; an alarming fact is that South Africa hosts the third-highest number of cybercrime victims in the world.

‘’It would not be hard to shut down the (SA) Government considering the minimal Cyber security measures in place” she said. Due to Uptake and lack of awareness, increasing use of social networks, Basic lack of awareness of cyber security risks the country is now in the current situation, she added.

According to the CISCO Annual Security Report of 2009,‘as more indi-viduals worldwide gain Internet access through mobile phones, Cyber crimi-nals will have millions of inexperienced users to dupe with unsophisticated or well-worn scamming techniques that more savvy users grew wise to (or fell victim to) ages ago.’

In order for South Africa to cre-ate a more secure cyber space, Von Solms pointed out 5 areas where some projects/initiatives are present-ly researched. She highlighted: Cyber Security Capacity Building; Cyber Security Awareness programs; New models and support for home users and SMME’s; Cyber Counterintelligence; Parliamentary Oversight of Cyber Security and Critical Information Infrastructures.

South Africa needs to focus on capacity building. SA has no real coor-

dinated effort so far, although the SA Government has indicated that the matter is important. The business sec-tor has also not made real efforts from its side. What is needed is a National Cyber Security Academy sponsored by both Government and Business.

This being seen as a major proj-ect of importance, what now needs to be done is for the country to create Cyber Security Awareness programs. The focus will be on SA Cyber Security Academic Alliance (SACSAA – www.cyberaware.org.za) and Cyber Security Awareness Week. Education playing a very vital role, workbooks should also be distributed for schools. But owing to the lack of financing there is no finan-cial support. Government and Business together need to sponsor a national Cyber Security Awareness Programme.

Gerald O’Sullivan Divisional Head of Innovation and Research at SITA said Web Development Framework for Rapid Software Development in the Public Service was vital.

Looking at the International con-text O’Sullivan adds that “The 2012 Survey finds that many Member States are moving from a decentralized sin-gle-purpose organization model, to an integrated unified whole-of-govern-ment model contributing to efficiency and effectiveness.

“The model aims at centralizing the entry point of service delivery to a sin-gle portal where citizens can access all government-supplied services, regard-less of which government authority pro-vides them”. He noted.

In some countries, the whole-of-gov-ernment approach helps build a trans-parent government system with inter-connected departments and divisions, feeding into the funnel of greater gov-ernment efficiency and effectiveness.”

O’Sullivan said Open JIG it is a set of technologies to build web-based trans-actional systems for government. He added that a sample application which uses the entire set of technologies; Documentation to guide developers through the technology stack; FOSS or Open Content licenses, can be upgrad-ed to enterprise support concluded O’Sullivan.

GOVTECH In Camera

GoVtECH rEPort BaCK


GOVTECH In Camera

GoVtECH rEPort BaCK


FoCUSED PERSoNALITY

ALL IS WELL AT USAASA, SAYS CHAIRDigital Focus speaks to the Chairperson of USaaSa Pumla radebe. the agency has been attracting a lot of bad press recently and we explore the issues further with her.

By Staff Reporter


FoCUSEd PErSoNality

Do you think that the current Board and management are equal to the task at hand? What is it that you are doing differently to improve the image of the agency? Indeed the Board is equal to the task set up by the Electronic Communica-tions Act.

The Board believes that the first step of improving the image of the organisation is to implement its man-date. In this regard, we have embarked on various programmes. These include identifying the ICT Access Gaps. We are also improving the way we commu-nicate with our stakeholders to ensure common understanding of the task ahead. As the Act states, we are not an implementation agent, but the custodi-an of universal access. It is therefore of paramount importance that we encour-age operators to partner with us in the implementation of service delivery. We are also working with various sectors of society such as community leader-ship, NGOs, other government institu-tions and multi-national organisations to bridge the digital divide.

Our challenge in the past was an organisational structure that could not respond to obligations of the Fund. We decided to develop a new structure in line with our deliverable outcomes, and are busy building strong internal capacity. We have also put in place proper reporting procedures and sys-tems. I can tell you that our first and second quarterly reports were accept-ed by the department, which is a clear sign that the Agency is improving.

What about service delivery? Is the agency making an impact in deliver-ing access to the poor and the under-served? We are making great strides in deliv-ering services to un-serviced, under-serviced and rural communities. In this financial year alone, we have deployed 240 cyberlabs. In our last Board meet-ing, we approved the deployment of two major projects. These are broad-band infrastructure at Msinga Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal and Malahleni Local Municipality in East-

ern Cape. We have also approved addi-tional 30 cyberlabs in schools through-out the country. We are also putting in place plans to have a physical pres-ence in the Northern Cape and North West Provinces to enable the people of those areas to access our services bet-ter. The Board is very passionate about rural development. It is for that reason we have issued an instruction that our projects must have rural appeal. We have also entered into a partnership agreement with ICASA to share infra-structure, research and implementa-tion of universal services obligations by licensees.

How do you define universal access? How often do you review the definition of universal access and service? In terms of the ECA, we are supposed to make recommendations to the Min-ister of Communications every second year. Our current definition is that we should provide quality, affordable and user-friendly access to public infra-structure and services on shared basis to all persons and communities in the underserviced, un-served, rural and poor communities. Personally, I also strongly believe that as we define the meaning of universal access, we should also strongly consider the plight of people living with disabilities regard-less of where they are. We are currently

reviewing our definition to pronounce strongly on poverty, unemployment and under-development of our people by creating an information society.

It is close to 20 years since the estab-lishment of the agency. Looking back, what do you rate as its success sto-ries? The most important success was our research that led to the definition of the needy persons and underserviced areas. These two definitions have been critical in the shaping of ICT policies for the country. At an operational level, we have built 240 cyblerlabs in commu-nities. We have also connected schools in underserviced, rural and poor com-munities. What is important with com-munity access points is that they have created skills and employment in the country.

The DoC is reviewing all ICT policies. Do you envisage any changes to the mandate of the agency? It is very difficult to anticipate any specific change to our mandate. We are participating in the ICT Policy Review and have made representation to this effect. Our view is that the Agency should primarily focus on rural devel-opment and serve as a catalyst for eco-nomic growth. We also believe that for us to make any meaningful impact in addressing identified access gaps, the contributions towards the Fund should be increased to internationally accept-ed norms and standards. Currently, South Africa is the lowest ranked coun-try in terms of contributions towards access funds, despite it being the most expensive when it comes to telecoms costs.

Our representation is that we want to be the focal point of coordination and implementation to all universal services and access elements. These include broadband connectivity to underservice, un-serviced, poor com-munities and rural areas. We believe that the outcomes of the review under-way should result in the elimination of duplication between and among gov-ernment agencies.

“the most important success was our research that led to the definition of the needy persons and underserviced areas.


FoCUSEd PErSoNality

Licensed operators have been con-tributing to the Universal Service and Access Fund for many years, how much is in the kitty? Is the money ring-fenced or is it part of the National Revenue Fund (NRF)? According the National Treasury, a total amount of R1.5 billion has since been contributed towards the Uni-versal Service and Access Fund since 1998. We have spent R750 million, which means it is left with the same amount spent. In terms of the ECA, the contributions towards USAF are collected by ICASA and credited to the National Revenue Fund. Therefore ring-fencing will be a possible option as it will undermine the budgeting process allocation by Parliament as required as required by the Constitu-tion of the Republic of South Africa.

What plans are underway to unlock the fund? The Agency has quantified the ICT Access Gaps in the country with a view to align with the National Development Plan of the 2020 Vision. A business case been established in the form of a National Strategy for Universal Ser-vice and Access Fund, which provides guidance to the country and USAASA stakeholders with regards to programs for closure of identified access gaps.

We believe that to be able to allo-cate funds, we need to have strong internal controls and provide clarity with regards to qualification criteria for projects funding. We needed to develop clear and transparent funding policies and guidelines. In this regard, we have developed a Fund Manual that will guide us on which projects should be funded. I can tell you that central to the guidelines is the issue of skills development and local economic generation. The Fund Manual will be

published for South Africans to read and understand. We will also simplify our criteria to allow even the poorest of the poor to be able to successful-ly apply for funding. You will recall that the ECA dictates that we have to work closely with ICASA to remove obstacles that prevent our people from accessing assistance. As you can see, we have moved beyond plans, but are implementing solutions. When the National Treasury and Parliament see that we are organised, the unlocking the fund becomes a non-issue.

Put differently, should the Fund con-tinue to exist, or should government policy only focus on obligations to get industry to roll out services? The Fund is the only hope for a young and underdeveloped person who stays somewhere in Vhembe. It is always humbling when I visit our sites and see people whose only contact with the computer is for the first time through our access centres. I am saying this because when we are sitting in our big houses accessing radio, television and internet, we take those things for granted. Universal access is a basic human right. We cant’s allow an Animal Farm situation, where others are more equal than others. All South Africans worked equally to bring about the dem-ocratic dispensation in this country. So, why must it be correct that only those in big cities should have access to information? You have to remember that big companies focus on maximis-ing profit in big cities, while ours is a responsibility of restoring dignity of all our people through access to infor-mation.

What are your leadership qualities that make you the best person to take the agency to new heights?

It is very difficult for me to answer that question, safe to say I, like the rest of the Board, was appointed based on my track-record. I believe that the work we are doing speaks volumes. The fact that the Portfolio Committee on Communications believes we are on the right track is enough for me to be convinced that the leadership I am providing to the Agency is responded to positively.

What are your main plans or pro-grammes over the next three years? We have our work cut out for us over the next three years. At the centre is to create employment through contri-bution towards local economic devel-opment. We also intend to improve quality of life by connecting all clinics and hospitals to ICT infrastructure. The school connectivity programme continues with the massive roll-out of community access centres.

Below are the main focus areas: ß Community and Institutional

Broadband accessß Universal basic mobile tele-

phone serviceß ICT training and capacity

building supportß ICT content and applicationsß Universal access to broad-

bandß Affordable ICT’sß People living with disabilities

I am confident that working together with citizens of this country, we will succeed.

At the centre of our agenda is the creation of a knowledge society, which will then lead to knowledge economy. We plan to create more jobs and skills even in the most remote areas of our country.

i am confident that working together with citizens of this country, we will succeed. “


Mavoni Telecoms is South Africa’s most dynamic and newest wholesale provider of high-capacity, carrier-grade, and quali-

ty telecommunications services with a specific focus on underserved areas. We provide a broad portfolio of innova-tive, field-proven, high capacity back-haul and IP solutions for leading tele-communications operators, ISPs, public sector as well as corporate customers. These solutions are designed to deliver premium data services, eliminate the backhaul capacity bottleneck, signifi-cantly reduce backhaul costs and tran-sition to next generation IP networks.

We deliver these services through an intelligent combination of next gen-eration Medium-Earth-Orbit (MEO) sat-ellites and fibre optic networks that enable us to provide full national cov-erage. Mavoni delivers quality trans-mission services at affordable prices allowing ISPs and Telcos to deliver reli-able, high-quality telecommunications services that are demanded by their own customers.

Through a constellation of 8 satel-lites to be deployed at an altitude of 8000 km (MEO), Mavoni will deliver high capacity to all parts of South Africa by utilizing a combination of remote beams with each beam capable of providing

coverage areas of 600 kilometre diame-ter with speeds of up to 1.2 Gigabit per seconds.

HISToRYMavoni Technologies is an empowered information technology service provid-er founded in 2006 focussed on the provision of enterprise IT solutions and managed services to the telecommu-nications, financial services and public service sector in South Africa.

In 2009 the telecommunications assets of the company were spun-off into a separate company called Mavoni Telecoms. Mavoni Telecoms quickly established itself in the market as a telecoms operator of choice for under-served markets.

In May 2011, Mavoni announced a strategic multi-million dollar partner-ship with O3b Networks to provide fibre quality, low latency transmission capac-ity on the new $1.2 billion Medium Earth Orbit satellite constellation that will blast to space in Q4 of 2012.

MARKET FoCUSOur service offerings are tailored to address specific market demands such as:-

- IP trunking– telecoms operators and enterprises that need solutions to aggregate traffic from various loca-

tions to a single hub- VSAT trunking – providing qual-

ity connectivity for e-Learning, e-Health and e-Government initia-tives with ability to reach thousands of customer premises

- Mobile backhaul – transmission capacity for GSM/3G/LTE mobile operators and ISPs

- Municipal broadband networks – connect municipal offices and form a backbone to municipal broadband networks

- Redundant connectivity – provides carrier grade redundant connectiv-ity to existing cable and wireless networks

KEY DIFFERENCIAToRS•Quality bandwidth and low latency

that rival fibre optic offerings•Affordable pricing tailored to offer

products from 5 Mbps circuits all the way to STM-1 •Mobility and flexibility of deploy-

ment allowing services to be deployed anywhere within beam coverage area in a matter of hours•Dynamic bandwidth allocation to

ground terminals as per traffic pat-tern•National coverage that enables the

same quality of service even in rural areas and difficult terrain

Mavoni, O3b Networks partner to rollout connectivity in underserved areas

ADvERToRIAL


THE WoRLD IS AN oYSTER FoR NEW KID oN THE BLoCK

FoCUSED oRGANISATIoNBy Staff Reporter

Inspired by major role players like Dimension Data and Business Connection, M2TD (Micro Squared Technology Dimension) has set its sights on conquering South Africa and

the rest of the continent within the IT ser-vice business in the next three years.

Companies globally are looking at safeguarding their data and ensuring it is available on request from any part of the world at the click of a button. For Founder and CEO of M2TD, David

Matshane, his company, which hopes to carve a niche as a provider of data centres consulting and man-aged services, it is already making serious inroads in the industry.

In a rapidly changing data centre environment, M2TD part-ners with customers to define

it has just landed on its feet but M2td is already inspired to take on africa and the rest of the globe

Founder and CEo of M2TD, David Matshane


a strategy, execute that plan and oper-ate in their environment. “Our constant focus is on cost efficiency, risk miti-gation and service improvement. Our unique business model comprises of proprietary software tools, methodol-ogies and domain expertise. We help deliver on the promise of agility and usage based spending in the next gen-eration infrastructure paradigm.”

Matshane says as with most black owned companies, the beginning was the hardest in the company’s journey thus far.

“In the beginning we always had set-backs such as funding and the company finding its feet in the industry and that was to be expected in a very competi-tive and fast changing ICT environment. The foundation of the company had a number of hurdles but we managed to maintain it in the long run. Coming across consulting while in the early stages of the business gave the real-isation that perhaps it would not be such a bad idea to build the business through that.”

Founded in 2009, M2TD is an Emc2 partner and primarily works in the services space from implementation, opportunity creation, assessment and doing the architecture.

Matshane says they are not a typ-ical reseller of Emc but more of an extension of their services.

The focus is for the company to play in the data centre field. “We are big on Emc; we have the skills as a company. You could basically call us a skills warehouse for Emc,”says a proud Matshane.

With the changing landscape of the IT industry and technology, Matshane says planning ahead is imperative: “Our short term goals are to increase capacity as there is a growing demand for our services. We have a very pos-itive pipeline and feedback from the market and we are gaining satisfactory attention from the market.”

After working on various projects for an extended period of time, their big break came when M2TD came together to do bigger projects with Emc, a moment Matshane says he will

cherish forever: “That for us was the breakthrough to launch ourselves. With that we created about 14 varying job opportunities and today we continue to grow and look forward to the future.”

The hardworking CEO says a lot of companies tend to lose focus after getting big contracts, a lesson he says M2TD has learnt quickly. “We plan to increase our skills base so we can diversify our offerings, more especially in the cloud space and data security and big data space. So data mining and information intelligence is our direc-tion as a company. We are aiming to

take over the services business in three years from South Africa to the rest of the continent.”

The company says it plans to devel-op young disadvantaged individuals to improve their knowledge of systems. Training is very important and for us as a company that is the message we will always try to deliver on. The idea is to expose them to high end consultancy or IT level. Young black people should really step up and take the opportuni-ties when they are presented to them.”

Starting a company, the focus is to always make sure a company comes into the market to provide services

that are necessary for the industry. According to Matshane, the training he received overseas exposed him to other aspects of the industry that he never knew existed. The urge to get into business has always been there for him.

Matshane adds that the long-term plan includes diversifying the compa-ny’s skills base not only on storage, backup and recovery but to get more complicated and look at cloud com-puting, data security and the big data space. “In alignment with our relation-ship with Emc, we are trying to cover as much as possible from the product portfolio, by having multiple skills from a technology point of view for the ser-vices perspective, so that we can be at the top of the services bin in the country.”

M2TD has had the privilege of working on some of the big ICT proj-ects and for Matshane the lessons that the company learns form such proj-ects can only motivate them. Though he does not divulge specific clients, he says there is one project that is very dear to the company as it got them into a very strong position. “We have major projects that we have success-fully completed; we are at 95 percent from an implementation point of view on a particular project. The project is a total tech refresh on a data centre, storage refresh, data refresh, back up refresh and archiving with replication for disaster recovery. M2TD is a prime implementer for the actual configura-tion and we continue to offer support to the client.”

“This is a project that we are very happy with because during its course a lot of our people were skilled, cer-tified and gained a lot of experience, which is invaluable. As a company we are always looking for new opportuni-ties in the industry and given our good track record thus far, we can only get better and closer to achieving our goals of conquering the continent.”

M2TD has strategic alliances with some of the world’s biggest ICT compa-nies including, HP, Dell, Vmware,Cisco and Netapp.

FoCUSEd orGaNiSatioN

“this is a project that we are very happy with because during its course a lot of our people were skilled


The world has come a long way since the emergence of the computer. Laptops followed suit after person-al computers and, over the

years, have changed as users were looking for more portable devices.

Tablets and smartphones have now made life more bearable as they make access to the world at large much sim-pler.

“Smartphones are essential to our lives. It has been said within 15 minutes of waking up - 4 out of 5 smartphone owners are checking their phones. 80% reach for their phone before doing anything else” says David Motlafi from the Gauteng Shared Service Centre (GSSC).

Other research has shown that 79% reach for phone within 15 min-utes of waking up; 62% reach for it immediately after waking and 44% reach for it immediately and use as alarm clock. Motlafi says “this form of evidence supports the fact that smart-phones are now part of us”.

According to Motlafi, Mobile gov-ernment - mGovernment, is the exten-sion of eGovernment to mobile plat-forms, as well as the strategic use of government services and applications which are only possible using cellular/

mobile telephones, laptop computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and wireless internet infrastructure.

Further research states that look-ing at the age differences, among 18-24 year olds; 89% reach for their phone within 15 minutes of waking; 74% reach for it immediately after waking and 54% reach for it immedi-ately and use as an alarm clock.

Motlafi says this trend is not only limited to within our borders. Developing countries are slightly behind compared to their 1st world counterparts. Looking at the impact of smartphones on people’s lives in South Africa in terms of numbers, 5% of people are content living without a smartphone, 57% are gradually on their way to owning one, and 34% of them are already on the smartphone platform.

Motlafi added that access for mGovernment will be simplified as there will be more places where res-idents can use it to attain resources through Citizen Touch Points.

These are spread through a good number of access areas such as in Citizen Economic Development; Education; Electricity and Water and Human Resource Development and Employment. Other Touch Points

include Law and Legislation; Safety, Security and Justice; Environmental; Identity and Immigration; Municipal Services and Healthcare.

Motlafi explained that their vision for the City of The Future is a connect-ed city leveraging innovative technol-ogy to drive service excellence, new revenue opportunities, cut costs and improve quality of life for citizens, businesses and visitors.

Speaking on the potential to devel-op a Central “App” Store for Gauteng, Motlafi says this includes a collabo-ration Hub for Aspiring Mobile App Developers in Gauteng; a common Platform of which Standards and Methods can be employed and a com-mon Market Place that could cross the Public/Private divide.

Under the Mobility Framework - Execution Strategy, there are six pillars, namely, Strategy, People, Process, Application, Security and Architecture.

The Strategy structure looks at Aligning with overall government strat-egy. Motlafi says this includes com-ing up with a business opportunities roadmap. This means that developing a mobile capabilities roadmap and hav-ing a mobile device management strat-egy and Mobility Governance.

Gauteng Government goes Mobile

With the rise of the ubiquitous cellular phone, it is fast becoming easier to live life on this preferred gadget and, having seen this ...

SCIENCE AND TECHNoLoGYBy Eugene Morokolo


He adds that when it comes to people; their roles and responsibili-ties need to be defined. He says “there should be a talent Management / Skills Optimisation and also new processes in recruiting and training”.

Motlafi highlighted the fact that Process should focus on Application P r o c u r e m e n t / D e v e l o p m e n t ; Deployment; Quality control; Architectural Governance; Project Planning and Management and Support.

The strategy also has Application as part of the structure. Motlafi explains that there should be an Application Portfolio Management; a Mobile App Roadmap which also encompasses Mobile App Store. “A link between User and Stakeholder Communities. The Application should also have Usability; Functionality and Reliability to the user. Lastly he stated that there should also be Access Management and Authentication”.

Security is always a key component that needs to be looked at as a crucial aspect. When looking at devices and interaction between organisations and individuals, setbacks should always be considered in terms of security threats. “There should be a continuous Update of Security Policies. Keep it in check by also Assigning Membership and Policies. This would then also be able to track Assets; Monitor and Track Security Violations; Disable Lost and Stolen device and Remotely Kill and Lock”.

When there is a good Security checkpoint it then becomes easier to do over the Air Application Updates and over the air client delivery.

Architecture simply outlines how Styles of computing will be done; defines the Device and platform stan-dards. Motlafi says: “When you have a model, it is already easy to have inte-gration with enterprise systems. With development tooling, developers can then use this platform to create, debug, maintain and support other pro-grammes and applications. This should then assist with device testing.”

SCiENCE aNd tECHNoloGy

David Motlafi from the Gauteng Shared Service Centre (GSSC)


Globalisation has had an impact on how the world functions. For any city in any part of the world, it is vital that it finds ways that best work for its

residents; both in the inner city and the outskirts.

Looking at two major cities in the province of Gauteng, Johannesburg and Tshwane (formerly Pretoria), we see the emergence of the Bus Rapid System (BRT) and the Gautrain which was launched just months before South Africa’s 2010 soccer World Cup tour-

the City of tshwane introduces its own Brt system on the heels of the successful rea Vaya currently servicing the residents of Johannesburg. it hopes its a re yeng buses will attract a decent commuter clientele when it starts running next year.

GEt oN tHE BUS

By Steven Maubane

ADvERToRIALBy Steven Maubane


nament. The Gautrain transports thou-sands of commuters who live and work between the two cities daily.

“The City of Johannesburg (COJ) has adopted an urban development policy which strongly focuses on the need to create compact cities and limit urban sprawl in order to utilise urban infrastructure and land more efficiently and effectively” says Benny Makgoga the Director of Marketing and Communications of the Rea Vaya - Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in the city.

There is no escaping the traffic con-

gestion as you move in and out of the City of Tshwane during peak hours due to the current road constructions. The City says its A Re Yeng BRT system, which is expected to be launched in 2014, is being implemented after the recognition that traffic congestion has become a major problem for residents. “Residents of many poorer areas rely on public transport to get to work or to school. By implementing a cost-effec-tive and efficient public transport sys-tem, road safety will be improved and congestion reduced, while residents’ mobility will increase,” says the City.

In order to be on par with the rest of the world’s best cities, strategies need to be in place to make sure the move-ment within a city itself is simplified even more for visitors.

The hosting of an event of the mag-nitude of the Soccer World cup was such an eye opener for the country.

Makgoga adds that for Johannesburg “the principal project objective of Rea Vaya is to upgrade the quality and performance level of the public transport system”. He says “BRT refers to a high quality bus based tran-sit system that delivers fast, comfort-able, and cost-effective urban mobility through the provision of segregated right-of-way infrastructure, rapid and frequent operations and excellence in marketing and customer service. The objective of the City is to make public transport accessible, convenient, safe, fast and affordable for the residents”.

He says most of these objectives have been achieved as Rea Vaya is

now operating in both Phase 1A from Soweto to the CBD through FNB Stadium and Westgate/Booysens and Phase 1B from Soweto to the CBD through Westbury, Auckland Park and Parktown with Phase 1C from the CBD to Alexandra and Sandton to be fully operational by 2016.

The City of Tshwane is launch-ing its BRT system a few years after Johannesburg’s. The city says users of the system can expect to feel safe while waiting for the bus in the sta-tion with the presence of security and the constant monitoring of the bus and stations from a central control room. “A Re Yeng is aimed at improving the provision and level of service of road-based public transport, including reduc-ing the overall journey times for public transport users and improving access between residential areas and major economic modes within the city.”

Both cities say they have noted transport efficiency by considering a 24 hour system.

COJ says they will use every oppor-tunity to assist the residents as far as is possible and the service will depend on the demand and the available financial and operational resources that will be required.

The other city says: “Tshwane is a city that is abuzz with activity. As a vis-itor to the city, one can move with ease through the city using the A Re Yeng service that will operate from 5:00am to 8:30pm on weekdays.”

Technology is a leading factor and plays a vital role in today’s world. Any

Executive mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa, left, and the mayoral committee member for roads and transport ,George Matjila, outside the new Tshwane rapid transit station.

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new project that begins always puts technology top of its plans. In order to appeal to the masses and make sure that the BRT system stays ahead of the game, such considerations as Paperless and Green Technology come to mind.

“Rea Vaya uses Advanced Public Transport Management system that informs commuters about travel times, movement of buses and also informs on areas of demand so that we can develop an accurate scheduling of buses. The automated fare collection system uses smartcards and allows commuters to pay only for the distance they travel. It is a distance based fare and the City is able to collect fares through a bank based system as paper tickets are no longer used”.

The city says “the control room (centre) electronically monitors the movement of buses and commuters at the stations and in transit to make sure that travel is safe, convenient and secured at all times”.

The city however does not have a mobile application but says it is in the process of developing an integrated passenger information system where commuters can access information through various forms of electronic communication.

Without a mobile app this could cause frustration for commuters if they do not receive prior notices about delays or strikes. COJ says it has invest-ed in a strategy that includes the fol-lowing: Public education and awareness campaigns; Distribution of brochures,

posters, flyers and pamphlets to com-muters at the Rea Vaya stations; Face to Face communications with commut-ers at the stations and at convenient point of contacts; Print Ads; Radio advertising through Live reads and interviews; Rea Vaya Website; Rea Vaya Facebook and Rea Vaya Twitter.

To the north of the Province, the City of Tshwane says the development of A Re Yeng’s website is on the cards. It will enable commuters to download an application where it will show them all route plans and departure times. Commuters will be able to use the application on their mobile phones. A mobile application will also be added to make similar information available to commuters.

The A Re Yeng fares will be a No –Cash System. Passengers will pur-chase the initial smart card at a nominal cost, once off. No cash will be han-dled by the drivers. Smartcards can be purchased and / or topped up in the main stations and at selected retailers.

Ticketing kiosks might even be provid-ed to improve access to the system and to encourage entrepreneurship.

For a new project to be fully func-tional sometimes it does take some time to have everyone’s buy-in, par-ticularly when you come into a market with so much competition, in terms of road transportation catering to people travelling in a city.

Tshwane says A Re Yeng will provide the city with a much needed service that will alleviate commuting challeng-es experienced daily by residents. They are aware that A Re Yeng will be the end-all of the city’s transport challeng-es. “Yet we acknowledge that once it is integrated with existing transport options it will result in greater flexibili-ty, convenience and affordability”.

Trains, buses and taxis all have important roles to play in providing a comprehensive public transport but the City is hopeful commuters will use the A Re Yeng option when it starts running next year.

rea Vaya uses advanced Public transport Management system that informs

commuters about travel times, movement of buses and also informs on areas of demand

so that we can develop an accurate scheduling

of buses.

“


adVErtorial

www.sas.com/sa


WHEN

As more companies and government departments implement cloud com-puting policies and infra-structure, for the Depart-

ment of Rural Development and Land Reform, this is still a long term goal. While there is agreement that ICTs can contribute to rural development, the department is faced with aging ICT hardware infrastructure which dates back many years.

“Our servers are old, out of warran-ty and support. It is very hard to keep them up. We don’t have a fully-fledged disaster recovery environment which is being regularly tested. We also do not have a full testing environment for our applications. That is why we have developed and approved busi-ness cases and have published bids/tenders to assist us in modernising our

infrastructure,” says Joe Phago, Chief Information Officer at the depart-ment.

The department is on a mission to consolidate its Information Technolo-gy processes while reducing duplica-tion of systems as it is currently the case. The department says the revital-isation and harmonisation of systems will improve innovation and streamline service delivery. This will also include doing away with decentralisation in favour of a uniform and co-ordinated IT service.

The department is one of the many government departments that, due to their focus on rural areas, are not associated with the use of ICTs. However Phago says ICT plays a role in everything that people do. “ICT chang-es everything. It levels the playing field. It enables people in rural areas

With its key mandate forcing it to work mostly from rural locations, one government department is catching up with technological advances after years in the doldrums.

RURALURBANGoES

CoNNECTIvITYBy Staff Reporter


to have access to departmental ser-vices and economic opportunities that in the past they would have had to drive hundreds of kilometres to access.”

Phago says that the department has several ICT projects in rural areas including Electronic Rural Access Program (E-RAP) wherein they build ICT centres in rural areas. “These cen-tres enable people to access the inter-net (including email), to fax and print documents.

The department forms relations with people from these areas such that the people themselves are the drivers – they choose the sites for these centres, teach each other and maintain these centres with support from the depart-ment, Phago says.

The e-Cadastre Project is one of the critical projects being rolled out. “This is a project that going to change permanently the way land is being man-aged in the country. It will allow people to quickly and efficiently conduct land deeds search and to create a paperless environment in the process of register-ing deeds. It will reduce the timelines and entirely revamp the internal pro-cess of deeds registration and cadas-tral surveying.”

ICT projects in rural areas generally fail because of poor or non- availabil-ity of network connection and Phago says the department cannot afford to implement new innovations with the availability of critical infrastructure,

especially the need for network con-nection. “We are upgrading our net-work from ATM to Metro Ethernet. Metro Ethernet enables us to conduct bandwidth upgrades seamlessly with-out disrupting services and has high-er bandwidth. This is crucial for our department as we deal with scanned images and geo-spatial data which are bandwidth intensive.”

For a department that is not a tra-ditional user of ICTs, it is committed to be one of the model users of new tech-nologies. Phago says the department has been pro-active going as far as planning for their systems to communi-cate with other national and provincial departments. “We are automating sev-eral departmental processes.”

“For example, our Commission on Restitution of Land Rights branch requires an automated system to enable them to capture new land claims. President Jacob Zuma has announced the reopening of Land Claims, and, in response, we have built a system to capture new claims. We are in the pro-cess of enabling the system to commu-nicate with the Department of Home Affairs’ System to allow us to verify Identity Documents of claimants.”

Furthermore, the department is partnering with the Department of Social Development and municipali-ties – “We are leading the enhance-ments to the National Integrated Social Information System (NISIS). We are

revamping our Network (both Local Area Network and Wide Area Network). This will integrate traditional voice calls with video and data whilst creat-ing a more mobile experience – wire-less network experience. We are also virtualising our servers so that we can use them more efficiently. We are cre-ating better storage and backups so we can have more resilience and recover during a disaster.”

All these innovations will achieve more results as we move into cloud computing. Cloud computing is fast taking root across the world, preferred by both the private and public sectors to store large amount of data in servers located in remote locations. The ben-efits of cloud computing will depend on both the owners of content and the suppliers of infrastructure and network capabilities. “Our partners Telkom and SITA can do more to enable us to adapt to the new technological trends,” Phago says.

Going forward, he says the depart-ment intends to conclude the infra-structure tenders which will lead to the introduction of a fully-fledged disaster tolerant environment. This is one of the priorities for the next financial year.”

There are many other innovations in the pipeline. With time, the depart-ment will work with the Department of Communications and other state enter-prises that are involved in the develop-ment of the national ICT infrastructure.

URBAN

CoNNECtiVity


TELECoMMUNICATIoN

South Africa’s broadcasting landscape has over the past two decades undergone sig-nificant changes for a variety of reasons, including market

liberalisation and the licensing of com-munity broadcasting services.

But nothing has captured the changes in broadcasting more acute-ly than the competition for news. Historically, news has been a universal service where content obligations were imposed on broadcasters to contribute to socio-economic and cultural devel-opment. But today news has become big business.

Chief Executive Officer of Media Development & Diversity Agency (MDDA), Lumko Mtimde, says diversi-ty and Free to Air television services are an important factor when it comes to broadcasting. “The addition of tele-vision channels in the multi-channel environment, be it through DTT, Direct-to-Home satellite television services (DTH), subscription pay television, and so on, must be towards the promotion of diversity and in the context of a broadcasting system in South Africa that serves the public interest.”

Mtimde adds: “All language and cul-tural groups, gender and class must have their stories told and shared with

the nation in their own languages and from their own perspectives. These news and information services must be available to all South Africans and not limited to those who have access to pay television. Information and knowledge is power. An informed and knowledge-able society is good for a sustainable democracy, to deepen our democracy and for growth”.

Commercial television services such e-TV and The New Age-owned African News Network (ANN7) have entered the fray. Broadcasting news is no longer the sole forte of public and community broadcasting entities. It is now every-one’s business.

With the commercial sector seeing business opportunities in what used to be the preserve of the public and com-munity media, it means that competi-tion is fast shifting from entertainment content to news and current affairs.

Public and community media are being challenged to start seeing their sphere of influence as big business. They need no longer broadcast news because they have to but for the reason that it is a growing business even when the financial returns seem uncertain.

The recent launch of e-News African News Network confirms this shift. The SABC was swift to respond by launch-

ing the SABC News Network to com-pete with the other two. All three of them are broadcast on the Multichoice satellite service.

The community broadcast media has an urgent task to focus on improv-ing the quality of its news. They will be well advised to take advantage of their easy access to local communities.

Existing community television ser-vices include Soweto TV, Cape Town TV (CTV), Bay TV, One KZN, Tshwane TV, North West TV and Bara TV - with an estimated collective audience of six million viewers.

Recently the community television providers came together to establish an association to champion the inter-ests of this fragile sector. The new entity, the Association of Community Television South Africa (Act-SA), is expected to advocate for the interest of the sector covering various issues including a favourable policy environ-ment and continued financial support from government. The community sec-tor needs both policy and financial sup-port to survive in the changing broad-casting environment.

The implementation of DTT will also add impetus to the competition for news. Government Communication and Information Service (GCIS) says

More news is good news Broadcasters have gone out of their way to capture larger audiences through the latest craze of 24-hour news channels. all that’s left is for advertisers to come to the party, writes Steven Maubane

By Steven Maubane


tElECoMMUNiCatioN

this of the new channels: “24 hour news channels play an important role in ensur-ing that audiences are exposed to the critical information which enables them to make informed choices and participate in a democratic society. These channels inform, educate and influence opinion and because they broadcast for 24hours, they are able to provide up-to-date and rel-evant information. This progression is a distinctive feature from traditional media which has so far been challenged by new media.”

But the question remains whether the drive for news is going to be backed by significant financial returns. Will the advertisers support the drive towards more diversity in the news market or will they remain on the side-lines?

GCIS says it has been preparing for a multi-platform digital future for some time and has invested in audience research tools to assist it in equitably allocating government ad spend. “We are prepared to advertise in a highly fragmented media market,” says GCIS.

According to GCIS advertising is now of importance and government will make sure it markets its services on a variety of platforms. “Competition for television news audiences is fierce, with free-to-air services getting the lion’s share of govern-ment advertising due to their large reach. GCIS is monitoring audience growth in the newly launched 24hour channels and will support these channels with advertis-ing for relevant government campaigns as the audiences stabilise.”

While advertisers are expected to respond positively to the new develop-ment, the extent of their interest will depend on how content is packaged. For the stations to thrive and compete better the delivery of local content may be the key to unlocking more viewership. “The most critical thing is to have local con-tent with major focus on educational and health programming. However it would be shortsighted not to have entertainment as a key ingredient. To draw the youth market, the stations must serve them a portion of what they really enjoy, then serve them a good dose of educational supplements” says Matankana Mothapo, of the Communications Workers Union (CWU).


As more companies and government departments implement cloud comput-ing policies and infrastruc-ture, for the Department

of Rural Development, this is still a long term goal. While there is agree-ment that ICTs can contribute to rural development, the department is faced with aging ICT hardware infrastructure which dates back many years.

“Our servers are currently old, out of warranty and support. It is very hard to keep them up. We don’t have a ful-ly-fledged disaster recovery environ-ment which is being regularly tested. We also do not have a full testing envi-ronment for our applications. That is why we have developed and approved business cases and have published bids/tenders to assist us in modernising our infrastructure,” admits Joe Phago, Chief Information Officer at Department of Rural Development and Land Reform.

The rural development department is on a mission to consolidate its Infor-mation Technology processes while reducing duplication of systems as it is currently a case. The department says the revitalisation and harmonisation of systems will improve innovation and streamline service delivery. This will also include doing away with decen-tralization in favour of a uniform and co-ordinated IT service.

The department is one of the many government departments that due to their focus on rural areas are not asso-ciated with the use of ICTs. However

Phago says ICT plays a role in every-thing that people do. “ICT changes everything. It levels the playing field. It enables people in rural areas to have access to departmental services and economic opportunities that in the past they would have had to drive hundreds of kilometres to access.”

Phago says that the department has several ICT projects in rural areas including Electronic Rural Access Program (E-RAP) wherein they build ICT centres in rural areas. “These centres enable people to access the internet (including email), to fax and print docu-ments. The department forms relations with people from these areas such that the people themselves are the drivers –they choose the sites for these cen-tres, they teach each other and main-tain these centres with sup-port from the department” he says.

The e-Cadastre Project is one of the critical projects being rolled out. “This is a project that going to change permanent-ly the way land is being managed in the country. It will allow people to quickly and efficiently con-duct land deeds search and to create a paper-less environment

in the process of registering deeds. It will reduce the timelines and revamp entirely the internal process of deeds registration and cadastral surveying.” He explains.

ICT projects in rural areas generally fail because of poor or non- availabil-ity of network connection and Phago

RURAL DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENTS GETS TECHNO SAVVY

Chief Information officer at Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, Joe Phago.

By Staff Reporter

CoNNECTIvITYBy Staff Reporter


says the department cannot afford implement new innovations with the availability of critical infrastructure, especially the need for network con-nection. “We are upgrading our network from ATM to Metro Ethernet. Metro Ethernet enables us to conduct band-width upgrades seamlessly without dis-rupting services, and has higher band-width. This is crucial for our department as we deal with scanned images and geo-spatial data which are bandwidth intensive” he says

For a department that is not tradi-tional users of ICTs, it is committed to be one of the model users of new tech-nologies. Phago says the department has been pro-active going as far as planning for their systems to communi-cate with other national and provincial departments. “We are automating sev-eral departmental processes.

For example, our Commission on Restitution of Land Rights branch requires an automated system to enable them to capture new land claims. President Jacob Zuma has announced the reopening of Land Claims, and, in response, we have built a system to capture new claims. We are in the pro-cess of enabling the system to commu-nicate with the Department of Home Affairs’ System to allow us to verify Identity Documents of claimants.”

Furthermore, the department is partnering with the Department of Social Development and municipali-ties – “We are leading the enhance-ments to the National Integrated Social

Information System (NISIS). We are revamping our Network (both Local Area Network and Wide Area Network). This will integrate traditional voice calls with video and data whilst creat-ing a more mobile experience – wire-less network experience. We are also virtualising our servers so that can use them more efficiently. We are creating better storage and backups so we can have more resilience and recover during a disaster.”

All these innovations will achieve more results as we move into cloud computing. Cloud computing is fast taking root across the world, preferred by both the private and public sectors to store large amount of data in serves located in remote locations. The ben-efits of cloud computing will depend on both the owners of content and the suppliers of infrastructure and network capabilities. “Our partners Telkom and SITA can do more to enable us to adapt to the new technological trends”. Phago adds.

Going forward, Phago says the department intends to conclude the infrastructure tenders which will lead to the introduction of a fully-fledged disaster tolerant environment. This is one of the priorities for the next finan-cial year.”

There are many other innovations in the pipeline. With time, the depart-ment will work with the Department of Communications and other state enter-prises that are involved in the develop-ment of the national ICT infrastructure.

We are upgrading our network from

atM to Metro Ethernet. Metro

Ethernet enables us to conduct

bandwidth upgrades

seamlessly without

disrupting services

“

CoNNECtiVity


page 32 | Issue 7 www.saitnews.co.za

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