East African Submarine Cable System Critical to 2010 Success

By Eddyson Lugangwa Posted 02 November 2006 @ 11:28 am EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

Johannesburg (IBTimes.com) - The East African Submarine Cable System (Eassy) is essential to ensuring enough bandwidth is available for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, says Sentech acting COO Frans Lindeque.

Presenting to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications yesterday, Lindeque said there was insufficient bandwidth from the existing Telkom-controlled SAT-2, SAT-3 and South Atlantic Far East cables, and Eassy would have to make up the required amount.

The Department of Communications and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) also outlined their plans for when this country hosts the world's biggest sporting event.

Lindeque said Sentech would need to double its satellite infrastructure, which means replicating its teleport, situated in Honeydew, north of Johannesburg, in order to meet the redundancy requirements of the 2010 World Cup.

He added that Sentech's plans for the development of digital terrestrial TV and digital broadcasting TV handheld were well advanced. He noted that about 78% of the South African population would be covered by digital TV by 2010.

Satellite coverage would help transmit TV signals to the rest of Africa through the footprints of the PAS-7 and PAS-10 satellites. Other broadcast mediums would include commentary delivered over shortwave radio, Lindeque said.

However, the backbone for transmitting TV signals from the stadiums to the international broadcasting centre would be fibre cable and that is where Telkom becomes very important, because our [Sentech's] business is in wireless connectivity.

SABC CEO Dali Mpofu said an event such as the World Cup is a TV spectacle tightly controlled by FIFA [the international organising body]. And so everything had to be planned from the very beginning to ensure the best TV coverage is obtained. Mpofu said this planning included the proper positioning of TV cameras and ensuring signal transmission cables are laid properly in the new stadiums that are being built.

If a camera is not sited properly, or the cables have not been considered, then FIFA would have no problem in demanding the stadium be demolished and built again,he noted.

The SABC, he announced, has a R1.3 billion technology plan for the event, with at least R400 million secured from government. Mpofu also said the SABC has taken delivery of its first digital TV mobile broadcasting unit, worth about R50 million, and another seven or eight units would be needed.

Department of Communications deputy director-general: finance Harry Matabane said government had signed various guarantees with FIFA to ensure the success of the 2010 event. These included a broadcasting guarantee that would establish an international broadcasting centre (IBC), at a location still to be chosen, and that of venue media centres.

The telecommunications guarantee includes making available infrastructure to cater for the transport of bi-directional broadcast traffic between the venues and the IBC, at no specified cost. There was also a quality of service guarantee, meaning no single point of failure could exist, and that redundancy, meaning at least two fibre optic links, would be built into all the venues.