Durban wants to commercialise its extensive fibre optic cable network with a private sector partner and start the rollout of cheaper broadband and telecommunication services to local business and citizens as early as next year, barring any constitutional obstacles.
Jacquie Subban - eThekwini Municipality's Head of Geographic Information and Policy - presented more details on the plan at the SmartCity ICT (Information Communications Technology) Conference and Expo at the International Convention Centre held last week.
Concerns
Subban said despite constitutional concerns, the municipality was going ahead with upgrades to bring the fibre network to carrier-class status and is currently developing a business plan to be able to put out a tender for a private sector partner in the project by June.
"We want to be ready to be able to go live and start the rollout as part of a public-private-partnership as soon as we get constitutional clarity of this project's operating environment. This could mean commercialisation and a rollout could go ahead as soon as 2008."
She told delegates at the two-day conference: "The project is one of the most exciting developments for the people of Durban and is part of the city's exciting SmartCity strategy to bolster the local economy and empower its people by using ICTs.
"eThekwini already boasts the most extensive fibre optic cable infrastructure of any metropolis in Africa which is currently used for normal council services. Advances in technology led us to the realisation that this network can be used for providing highly affordable broadband internet and local telephony services to the community.
"We know it works, because we at the municipality alone are now saving about R15-million a year on telecommunication costs within the council and its departments using this fibre optic infrastructure and VOIP technology instead of Telkom's network.
Pilot testing
"Pilot testing projects in several areas carried out in the city has also shown excellent results."
Speaking to Network, Subban said: "The big bang (hype) will come when we get to commercialise this network with a private sector partner via a joint-venture, but it's the legal complexities that we that could delay the process."
National government is supportive of the initiative, but inhibitive old telecommunications regulatory frameworks, which gave Telkom a monopoly, could put a spanner in the works of such projects, which require further deregulation.
But Deputy Communications Minister Roy Padayachie, who spoke at the conference, said deregulation was afoot and was set to break Telkom's stranglehold.
"The high cost enabling citizens to gain access to fast, content- rich telecommunication services continues to be a major hindrance Cities developing their own broadband networks will have numerous positive spin-offs, however, there are some legal and regulatory implications for digitised cities that need to be addressed."
He said: "The Electronic Communications Act sets the legal framework for the implementation of initiatives around the 'Digital Cities' movement."
Subban said the eThekwini Municipality had last month called for a "Request for Proposals" (RFP) to tender to upgrade existing fibre- optic network to allow the network to offer carrier-class services.
"We have received bids from seven companies and hope to announce tender winners in May," she said.
Carrier-class status
Carrier-class status means there will be two separate networks - one for the municipality's use and the other for the private sector.
"The RFP should be seen as phase-one, where the network is being upgraded to carrier-class status - which includes high capacity hubs, routers and switches to break out of the municipal network. Respondents to the tender are companies that specialise in the telecommunications infrastructure space," said Subban.
She said the developments came after months of planning, negotiating and fine tuning by a steering committee comprising the city's ICT hub SmartXchange, heads of municipal ICT departments and specialised communications consultants.
Other South African cities and towns are developing their own broadband plans, but Durban seems to be ahead of the game. Last week Cape Town proposed plans for laying a 300 kilometre optic fibre core network over the next three years, which could cost the city R430-million.
Optic fibre backbone
Project Manager in Subban's unit, Ray Dhevraj, said Durban already had an optic fibre backbone. Asked what would it cost the city to lay this fibre network today from scratch, he estimated more than R700-million because it currently consisted of more than 320 kilometre of cabling.