Long established satellite and microwave service provider Telemedia recently built its
own fibre network for uncompressed video contribution circuits between the major
South African broadcasters and production houses.
Internet protocol (IP) data has also been added along some of these paths for remote
monitoring purposes.
“The high availability of bandwidth over fibre allows us to avoid the cost of the
terminal equipment associated with compression equipment,’ says Telemedia’s
Quentin Barkhuizen. “It also allows better quality of video as there are no
compression artefacts that may degrade the quality of compressed circuits.’
A further advantage is that there is no latency, which is often attributed to
compression algorithms. The fact that fibre doesn’t conduct electrically makes it much
safer to run over long distances without having to deal with lightning arrest. Literally
anything can be transmitted down fibre – any form of data, radio frequency and of
course analogue signals.
“The concept of fibre and managed networks must not be confused,’ explains
Barkhuizen. “All the players building terrestrial networks use fibre as the physical
layer. Regarding manufacture, all fibre cables and EO/EO interfaces are brought into
South Africa. We are not aware of anyone locally that makes either fibre or interfaces.
“As far as suppliers of fibre are concerned, there are many in South Africa and it’s
hard to say which may be the better product. Dark Fibre Africa is more geared towards
laying fibre but what is put through the fibre and what interfaces are used is
irrelevant to them. This has benefited Telemedia because we have mixed signals from
uncompressed high definition (HD) video to IP data and radio frequency (RF)
signals.’
According to Barkhuizen, large telecommunications providers appear more focused on
building managed networks that use fibre as a physical medium. “They are all
operating in the same space now. But it is the new operators that have made the
initial push to offer fibre access easily available to the public.’
Theoretically anybody can go to a licensed service provider and request to have fibre
installed in their home. It’s all boils down to whether it’s worth the cost. For the likes
of data centres, Internet service providers (ISPs) and broadcasters, having the fibre
versus the high speed data or uncompressed video definitely outweighs the cost. For
home users the cost outweighs the use.
“South Africa is not as developed as other first world countries as the regulator only
recently allowed new operators to build networks. This legislation has obviously
created a competitive market. Fibre is the obvious physical medium to build any
terrestrial network.
“Telemedia’s network is continually growing and expanding and this is highlighted by
our recent connections to Summit TV and e.tv, which are now on our network,’
concludes Barkhuizen.
