What follows is a tweenote presentation titled “Internet Access in SA 2010 – Tweeted”. For background: http://www.worldwideworx.com

#tweenote 1. By the end of 2011, African undersea cable capacity will increase 150-fold over the 2008 maximum

#tweenote 2. Blanket grant of licenses in SA, along with undersea cables, spark 18% growth in number of access providers

#tweenote 3. ADSL lines grew by 21% last year – versus 88% growth in mobile broadband accounts. The competition factor!

#tweenote 4. Of 1.5m wireless broadband subscriptions, only 930 00 use it as a primary form of broadband. ADSL is better

#tweenote 5. That means wireless broadband is 50% bigger than ADSL as primary form of broadband, from being level in 2008

#tweenote 6. Dial-up is down to 500 000 users. 200 000 migrated to broadband last year, the rest will follow.

#tweenote 7. ADSL in SMEs the big story: aside from the subscribers, they connected an additional 756 000 people in 2009.

#tweenote 8. Cellphone as primary form of access: 450 000 (3m use it in addition to other forms). Corporates connect 2m.

#tweenote 9. Total SA Internet user base end 2009: 5.3m. To grow to 9.9m by 2014. Academic and cellphone the big drivers.

#tweenote 10. The Experience Curve (our model) shows that usage of online services will explode from 2012. Prepare now.

That was a #tweenote presentation; a full research presentation in 10 tweets, from World Wide Worx. Thanks for following.

Telkom announced today that the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) would land at Mtunzini – the landing site of SEACOM, the first new cable – on the northern KwaZulu-Natal coastline.

However, it also admitted that the cable would only be ready for operations in August 2010 – too late to make a contribution to World Cup 2010 broadcast needs. Once it is in operation, however, its capacity will exceed that of the SEACOM cable.




Telkom is the South African landing partner for EASSy. In all, there are nine EASSy landing stations in Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa, with shore-end landings already having occurred in Mozambique and Sudan.

“EASSy is one of the elements of Telkom’s cable investment strategy and is a key step towards the process of establishing a Telkom fibre ring capability around Africa,” said Alphonzo Samuels, Telkom’s Managing Executive for Wholesale Services.

He added: “EASSy further increases the robustness of Telkom’s international bandwidth offerings and portfolio. Together with other undersea cables and/or land based fibre routes, EASSy creates redundant fibre access prospects into East Africa.”

World Wide Worx research has shown that the real significance of the EASSy cable is that:

• it reduces reliance on the existing Telkom-managed SAT3/SAFE cable, which has had several recent outages on the West Coast of Africa;
• it provides the first opportunity for clients of the SEACOM cable to achieve redundancy along the East Coast of Africa;
• it may over time drive SEACOM access prices further down, which will in turn bring down the costs on the other cables;
• it provides real competition for Internet access services for all countries on the East Coast of Africa;
• increasing connectivity between various cable systems means lower latency – the time it takes for data to pass through a network and for information to return;
• increasing connectivity means greater opportunities for online collaboration between companies operating across Africa.

An unintended consequence is that it may spur a new wave of demand for Telkom to bring down the access cost of Internet usage in South Africa. While it has reduced the cost of data capacity – or at least provided substantially more data for the same price – it has not brought down the cost of subscribing to an Internet-capable line for more than two years. It is this access cost, rather than the data charge, that represents one of the greatest obstacles to Internet growth in South Africa.

EASSy is a 10 000 km undersea cable system currently being constructed along the east African coastline. Its 1.4 Tbps system design capacity, coupled with its two fibre-pair configuration, equips EASSy with the highest capacity of all undersea cable systems along the east coast of Africa. The SEACOM cable has a capacity of 1.2Tbps.

Interconnection with various other undersea international cable systems will enable traffic on EASSy to seamlessly connect to Europe, North and South America, the Middle East and Asia, thereby enhancing the east coast of Africa’s connectivity into the global telecommunications network.

“EASSy is routed from South Africa to Sudan, linking the coastal countries of East Africa. An extensive backhaul system linking landlocked countries to the coastal countries has been developed and is at various stages of completion,” stated Samuels, adding that EASSy is scheduled to be ready for commercial service from August this year.

Samuels explained that submarine cables held many benefits such as superior transmission quality, considerably lesser delays compared to satellite, high transmission capacity, access to the global optical fibre network, lower unit costs (compared to satellite), no electromagnetic interference and higher resistance against adverse weather conditions.

“However, activities such as fishing and anchoring, ocean drilling, fish bites and earthquakes constituted some of the commonly known submarine cable hazards,” cautioned Samuels.

Various initiatives were nevertheless undertaken to protect submarine cables. These included conducting ocean bed surveys to select the safest undersea routes; burying cable in sand where possible, especially at the shallow end; avoiding heavy shipping lanes when approaching landing points; selecting safe beaches, bearing in mind that later beach erosion could expose cables; designing the shortest land cable route for maximum security; and, manufacturing cables to exceed the 25 year design life of the cable system.

“Redundancy, protection and – where necessary – restoration are also key considerations,” said Samuels.

He explained: “Redundancy means that we have duplicated equipment at the cable stations, duplicated power converters, generators, etc. Therefore, if a single piece of equipment should fail, we have another piece of equipment standing by to take its place.”

Protection ensures that a fully duplicated amount of capacity is available to re-route traffic on the same cable in the event of an internal failure impacting only one path or fibre. Protection therefore implies that for everything that is duplicated, automated switching takes place.

Samuels added that restoration required traffic to be routed onto other cable systems via completely different traffic paths and even different routes. “This usually happens when a complete failure of a cable system occurs, usually via an external influence such as a ship’s anchor breaking a cable, to the extent that ‘in-system’ protection on the same system is not possible.”

He also explained that customers have a choice between the regular international private lease circuits that includes restoration for their bandwidth or a product that excludes restoration, which would be termed non-restorable bandwidth or traffic.

“It must be emphasised, though, that in the event of submarine cable service interruptions, every attempt is always made to expedite customer services,” emphasised Samuels.

Although EASSy will not be commercially active by the time this year’s 2010 FIFA World Cup™ kicks off in June, Samuels stated that “Telkom’s undersea capacity has been significantly upgraded”. “For example, by end-October last year, SAT-3 and SAFE were upgraded to at least three times their former capacity.”

He added that SAT3 provided the shortest route to Europe while SAFE was the shortest link to Asia. From an undersea capacity perspective, therefore, it’s all systems go for the World Cup,” emphasised Samuels.

As its investment in EASSy highlighted, Samuels said that Telkom had a robust strategy with regard to undersea cable investments. The Company’s cable investments included COLUMBUS3, SEA-ME-WE3 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe), SAT3/WASC/SAFE (South Atlantic Telecommunications / West Africa Submarine Cable /South Africa Far East), EASSy, EIG (Europe India Gateway) and WACS (West Africa Cable System).

“Our investments are geared by the participation of other operators and we firmly believe that investment sharing translates to better unit costs and improved customer prices,” he added.

“Ultimately, we believe that EASSy will also go a long way towards increasing Africa’s bandwidth capacity, affordability and create increased diversity and fibre redundancy between SA and Europe as well as within East Africa” said Samuels.

Whether it’s crumbling infrastructure, lack of skills, social unrest, failing health standards, a larger tax bill or any combination of these events, 2010 in South Africa will be a good year to be sure your business continuity plans are in good shape.

There are, of course, always issues that force organisations to implement their business continuity plans, but with reduced budgets, less certainty in all spheres and the continuing brain drain, we expect a busy year for business continuity professionals.

With that in mind, I believe the following make up the top 10 issues businesses will face in 2010 that will cause them to invoke their business continuity plans:




1. Effect of the global recession

While South Africa seems to have missed the worst of the global recession, it was not and will not be immune to its impact and future consequences. Expect to see commodity and food prices increase, more job losses, and the consequential increase in volatility among the unemployed. Companies must ensure they continuously monitor the global and local socio-political landscapes.

2. Threat of pandemics

The threat of a pandemic has been looming large for a while. However, South Africa must look beyond the news-making issues such as swine flu and pay more attention to African diseases that are often ignored. Being aware of the potential dangers of Congo Fever, Malaria, Tuberculosis or Cholera, for example, is crucial.

We should also realise that the football World Cup takes place in the winter, which will increase the threat of outbreaks. It is highly advisable that local companies ensure they have a pandemic aspect to their business continuity and crisis management plans.

3. General infrastructure disruptions

World Cup or not, we will all have to adapt to more outages in all spheres of life. We hope the road chaos will be over in June, but don’t count on it. Expect more drama from Eskom’s old infrastructure and don’t think the water supply will escape the general outages experienced in the country.

Moreover, if a major incident, such as a derailing occurs on the section of the Gautrain that is operational, authorities may be required to cordon off certain areas, such as the Sandton CBD. Are businesses prepared for these emergency measures?

Of course, the strain on communications resources, be it voice or data during the World Cup may or may not overwhelm the communications mechanisms vital to business. How prepared is business for major supply chain disruptions?

4. Skills flight from SA

The skills issue won’t go away. Business is in a global fight for skills and South Africa is not in a position to create enough new skills to make up for those being lost. Once recessionary caution vanishes, international opportunities will attract more of our best and brightest away. In light of this, companies need to ensure that they have sufficient succession planning in place for all key employees.

To make matters worse, if government goes ahead and implements its national health scheme, national pension scheme, major Eskom price hikes and so forth, effectively increasing taxes significantly, the average taxpayer will be crippled. The National Health Scheme, if implemented in its present format, is not only unaffordable, but will drive a substantial numbers of the medical profession out of the country and, consequently, we should expect to see a new drive by skilled professionals to leave the country.

5. Non-delivery of basic services

The continuing lack of basic services amidst rampant corruption is fertile breeding ground for criminals and those wishing to disrupt social order. The effect of their actions can hinder business by harming infrastructure or employees, or preventing them from getting to the work place. Companies are advised to ensure that they have factored denial of access scenarios into their business continuity plans for 2010. The government is making the right noises, but we still need to see decisive action and remedies.

Moreover, the increased influence of Cosatu and the SA Communist Party in the ANC should not be underestimated. The danger is that, instead of addressing the real issues of non-performance by government departments, the government will follow a populist policy designed to appease the masses.

6. Climate fluctuations

Climate problems are another global phenomenon we all have to get used to. Companies need to ensure that they have the necessary contingency plans in place to deal with everything from flooding to riots due to food shortages.

7. Terrorism challenges

While South Africa considers itself a neutral country and not on a terrorist hit list, it would be a mistake to ignore the threat of internal sabotage by disenchanted South Africans. A disgruntled employee has already caused a panic in one of the country’s large banks, and there is no reason to think this will not happen again. A target such as the new Gautrain might prove irresistible to those with malicious intent.

8. Companies reducing business continuity management (BCM) spending

Cost cutting in many companies has resulted in reducing the budget for BCM planning and testing. If all goes well, these cuts will have the desired impact of reducing costs. If any or some of the above do occur, the cuts could result in serious consequences for businesses unable to deal with emergencies when they arise.

Corporate directors and managers would do well to ensure they meet new governance requirements in the Companies Act as well as King III. Accountability may not be rife in government, but there will shortly be legally enforceable rules in business.

9. Crime, corruption, civil unrest and illegal immigration

These are old South African stalwarts and are unlikely to change in 2010, with the exception of an increase in civil unrest. The lack of new jobs, even as the business environment recovers, called a jobless recovery, could also lead to increased and more violent Xenophobia. The potential impact of these issues on business always needs to be incorporated into continuity plans.

10. Information security vulnerabilities

The increased bandwidth available to business, coupled with new technologies, has made it easy to conduct business remotely. Uncontrolled traffic chaos and unsafe neighbourhoods have also encouraged business to allow, and in some cases encourage, people to work remotely. This may improve productivity and reduce office space costs, but if the appropriate security measures are not in place we could see data theft becoming as prevalent as violent crime in South Africa.

Business leaders should take advantage of technology to reduce their costs and increase productivity, but only after ensuring their systems and data are safe from digital thieves and disasters.

Of course, these are not the only information security treats we will face. Despite many press articles and even more horror stories, companies will still fail to backup their critical data, or for those that do backups regularly, nobody will bother checking that they work and can be restored until an emergency strikes, after which it’s too late to discover a problem.

Many companies that have moved to mirrored systems have also become complacent about the need to have offsite backups and to test recovery from these backups. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

The role of business continuity is to prepare for a worst-case scenario and it is therefore unlikely that all the above will happen. It is likely, however, that one or some of them will happen, but we can’t predict which or when.

Business leaders need to ensure that their organisations are geared to handle any changes in the social, weather, political or business environment. The alternative can be catastrophic.

About ContinuitySA

ContinuitySA is one of Africa’s leading provider of business continuity consulting and related services, helping companies, organisations and government departments of all sizes prepare for and deal with all eventualities. These include potential threats, events, incidences and unforeseen or sudden disruptions due to human error or natural events.

ContinuitySA operates a number of recovery centres in South Africa and Botswana, and is expanding into Mauritius, Mozambique and the Middle East. For more information, visit the ContinuitySA web site.

Two ads in the latest Sunday Times were seemingly innocuous: six posts advertised for Broadband Infraco, and 13 for the Department of Home Affairs. But between the lines, they said so much.

To start with, the Home Affairs ad was headlined “Building the New Home Affairs”. That ’s a positive sign to start with; an acknowledgement that Home Affairs as it had been structured and the way it had been operating simply wasn’t good enough.

The ad went on to list 13 positions, including nine for regional IT support officers, and one for a “Director: Networks (Technical)”. The job description for the regional support officers included one fascinating line: “Identifying suitable workarounds that provide staff with service improvement while a more permanent solution is sought”.

This suggests that the current staffing infrastructure is intended to represent a transition, and that a better Home Affairs is indeed the ultimate quest. The main danger, of course, is that the Department may remain in a permanent state of transition, in which case a better Home Affairs will remain an unattainable myth.

The second ad explains that “Broadband Infraco is a State-led intervention to rapidly normalise telecoms market market efficiency by commoditising only those parts of infrastructure that impede private sector development and innovation in telecoms services and content offerings.”

No, it is not an initiative to further liberalise the market (please forgive the split infinitive, but they started), which would have just that effect. Rather, it is intended to bring broadband access to companies and service providers at rates dramatically below prevailing costs.

Broadband Infraco is the lead player in the development of the West Africa Cable System, due to come on stream by the end of 2011, and providing the west coast of Africa with the highest capacity undersea cable that the continent has ever seen.

What makes the advertisement a significant signpost is what it reveals about terrestrial infrastructure and where most emphasis is going to lie in that infrastructure. The ad calls for suitably qualified people in facilities maintenance, fibre optic cable maintenance, and fibre optic terminal maintenance in six centres: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein, Durban and Polokwane.

The focus on these six centres is all the more significant in that the emphasis of national broadband backbones until now has been on the traditional three major centres, i.e. Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. While Broadband Infraco has always been known to be home to a national network, it has not been obvious that it has hubs in all major centres. The ad brings this point neatly home.

Johannesburg will clearly be the nerve centre of the operation, with Maintenance Manager, Network Operations Systems Engineer and Network Operators all to be based in the city.

The ad also highlights the demand for a new generation of technicians in a fibre-optic era. Electrical engineers (both diplomaed and degreed) with experience in telecommunications will find themselves in demand. But it is the requirement of the Network Operations Systems Engineer that highlights the multidisciplinary requirements of these technicians: the successful applicant must be “proficient in the different technologies used in fixed and mobile telecommunications networks”.

With luck, that should mean an organisation that is not obsessed with a single connectivity technology, as Telkom has tended to be over time (first ISDN, then ADSL), but will embrace a task-oriented approach to its technology decisions.

If both Broadband Infraco and the Department of Home Affairs can achieve their technology goals in 2010, they will also help kick-start long-overdue improvement in a dramatically wide range of services, from e-government and a faster passport application process to improved quality and cost of phone calls.

May these two innocuous ads be the start of greater things for South Africa.