By Anish Abraham

Have licence, will go wireless. Soon Jozi will have a hi-tech, wireless broadband network in place to rival the best in the world.

After years of dealing with broadcasting regulations, the City of Johannesburg finally is rolling out its wireless broadband network for internal usage, which should see communication costs drastically reduced.

According to Herklaas du Plessis, the deputy director of IT: communication technology, the R18-million project aims to have more than 170 council-used buildings connected to the network by June 2006.

Buildings will be switched from a 64-kilobyte Telkom fixed line to a 100-megabyte full duplex microwave link. Individual users might be able to expect bandwidth of up to four megabytes.

Masana, the City's IT outsourcing partner, is working with Multisource Telecoms to ensure all 1 600 square kilometres of the City is covered by the wireless network.

"We applied for a Private Telecommunications Network licence and Radio Frequency Spectrum licence; they were approved in December 2004," says Du Plessis.

Johannesburg was the first local government authority to get a licence to run its wireless telecommunications network. However, it was not the first authority to implement such a system, though Du Plessis says the others' attempts at a wireless network were far from legal in the eyes of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).

Jozi's first attempt at a wireless network came in 2001, under the old Midrand Local Council. But Icasa found it to be illegal and the network was shut down.

Icasa is responsible for regulating all forms of broadcasting in the country.

After much persistence, the City was awarded a licence to use the Hyper-LAN band frequency for internal communications. Microwave repeaters are placed at high points like on water towers, to which smaller dishes on individual buildings have a direct line-of-sight.

Each user needs a wireless LAN access point to connect to the network, though newer laptops come with the function built in.

"We have to ensure each step we take is totally legal," Du Plessis says.

Advantages

The greatest advantage of the new wireless system, he says, is that internal telephony is possible using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), rather than use standard telephone lines. This cuts down on costs.

"Due to good bandwidth available, all the City's servers can also be moved to a centralised location."

The licence gives the City permission to network its own facilities; this will benefit the utilities, agencies and corporatised entities (UACs), as the municipality owns them.

Also, once the capital costs of installation are paid up, there are no more line charges, which is not the case with Telkom, the fixed line operator.

"There will be huge cost savings for the City from using this network. It is an indirect improvement of service to the community as this allows for money to be used elsewhere."

The costs of internal telephony will be lowered to a minimum, while capital spent to install the new system can be recovered in about six months.

There will also be a saving in terms of infrastructure used. With wireless systems, there is no need for a fixed wall socket to connect to the network. One wireless access unit also supports up to 30 connections.

"For example, Jorissen Place had three network points per user. Those are astronomical costs. The move to wireless means true mobility and high bandwidth availability," Du Plessis says.

The City will still maintain its fixed line systems for external communications and as backup for the VoIP system.

Future

Du Plessis says that eventually more than 500 buildings that are used by the City council will be incorporated into the network, with the possibility of all the UACs joining in as well.

The IT department is currently deploying access points in Regions 6 and 10 and Du Plessis says Soweto should go "live" soon.

"National regulation is improving. It shows a commitment from the national government to relax regulations in the sector. There have also been many debates in parliament about the high costs of telecommunications in the country," he says.

Though a framework has been decided on, regulations governing wireless networks are yet to be finalised.

Eventually, should regulations allow for it, the City will be able to provide access to the internet to end-users - residents - possibly at People's Centres and public libraries.

Since Joburg was awarded its licence, several local authorities have joined in the wireless revolution and want to provide a similar solution for their internal communications.

A promising prospect is that authorities with their private networks could interlink with each other, providing they have agreements in place - a further boost to reducing a local authority's communications costs.

"Municipalities exist to deliver a high quality service to the community at lowest cost," Du Plessis concludes.

Source: Johannesburg News Agency