When the competing fleet of 11-strong crews of professional sailors dock in Cape Town harbour after up to 22 days on the open sea, Convergence Partners’ investee companies, Dimension Data, Internet Solutions and Comsol, have exclusivity in providing connectivity for the race fleet while it is docked in the Mother City port for repairs and re-stocking. The Cape Town leg of the race will take place in early December.

The Volvo Ocean Race has been held for 38 years, 11 of these under the Volvo banner. It’s an iconic event, starting in the Spanish port of Alicante in October 2011, and finishing in Galway, Ireland in 2012. On the way, the race visits Cape Town (South Africa), Abu Dhabi (UAE), Sanya (China), Auckland (New Zealand), Itajai (Brazil), Miami (USA), Lisbon (Portugal) and Lorient (France). The race is contested by 11-strong crews of professional sailors, who will endure temperatures ranging from -15 to +40 degrees Celsius over the course of the race. The teams compete in state-of-the-art Volvo Open 70s, the fastest racing yacht in the world.

John van der Vyver, Financial Director of Dimension Data Western Cape says, “The push for even minor advantages means the sailing teams are at the forefront of technological advances in the industry. Again, this has echoes in our own business, where it’s vital that we are ahead of the pack to offer our clients the gains that the latest technology offers. We understand competitiveness and the drive to get the edge.”

Van der Vyver goes on to explain that Dimension Data, Internet Solutions and Comsol have been appointed joint sponsors with exclusivity in the category of Information Technology. “This means we will jointly enable their connectivity while in port in Cape Town. Some of the technology we’ll be providing to support the IT requirements of the crews and associated personnel includes two Polycom units, a dedicated technical resource to provide hands-on assistance to the crews with laptops and connectivity so they can touch base with family and loved ones at home, all onsite LAN cabling to establish a secure and reliable onsite command centre, and all bandwidth requirements to support Internet use and traffic.”

Information technology (IT) services provider Dimension Data, a Convergence Partners investee, has been awarded the contract to supply all IT services for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP 17) event.

The contract entails the supply of network, audio, visual, wireless and Internet connectivity across the Durban venue.

Network company Cisco will provide the technology for the network, audio, visual and wireless solutions and Internet service provider Neotel will provide Internet connectivity and bandwidth for telepresence and videoconferencing.

“Dimension Data is the service integrator across the partners and will provide consulting and design services for the actual cabling and data centre infrastructure at the venue,” says Dimension Data regional executive director Jay Reddy.

The company’s sustainability strategy is based on three focus areas, namely commitments and efforts to improve its own sustainability, its employee engagement and the services and solutions that help clients deliver on their sustainability strategies.

“Our focus on sustainable solutions helps us win contracts such as COP 17,” enthuses Dimension Data sustainability director Colin Curtis.

He states that climate change is of great concern to Dimension Data and the company believes COP 17 is an important event that will deliver definitive actions for governments, businesses and individuals to reduce their impact on the environment.

Since 2007, the company has reduced its carbon footprint by 43% and has reduced the travel related emissions for each of its employees by 59%. Reddy says the company is mindful of continuing its focus to meet the aims of COP 17.

Dimension Data is also a member of environmental body Green Grid, which is a consortium of organisations, businesses, policymakers, technology providers and utility companies that aim to collaborate to improve resource efficiency of data centre and business computing ecosystems.

The company participates in work groups and the development of technical specifications that improve the efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of business computing.

Article from Engineering News

SEACOM and MAIN One, the only two privately funded and open-access based African submarine fibre optic cable systems, were awarded “Best Pan African Initiative” at the AfricaCom Awards 2011 ceremony held in Cape Town, South Africa, last week. The award recognises an initiative taken by an organisation or a group of organisations to improve telecommunications services at a regional or continental level.

Main One Chief Executive Officer, Funke Opeke, explained: “Through this partnership, Main One and SEACOM have extended their individual cable systems to the opposite coasts of Africa without the efforts required to construct brand new routes.

“The ability to connect the east and west coast of the continent directly results in improved throughput but also provides a system around most of the continent which provides improved redundancy for telecommunications operators.”

Commenting on the award, Mark Simpson, SEACOM CEO, said: “We are honoured to be recognised once again for our efforts in continuously extending pan-African connectivity by investing in infrastructure, products and services that meet the continent’s insatiable demand for bandwidth.

“This partnership shows our determination to find viable ways to extend our system with partners who share our vision of building the African Internet on an open and equitable basis.”

In addition, MTN South Africa received awards for the ‘Best Network Improvement’, for the Long Term Evolution (LTE) pilot test in Gauteng province, and ‘Best Marketing Campaign (dubbed Bow Wow) for MTN Zone.

MTN South Africa’s Chief Marketing Officer, Serame Taukobong said: “MTN is ecstatic to have once again gained this important recognition. These awards go to thousands of MTN employees, our partners and customers who shared the MTN vision with us and ensured that our objectives are realised.

“The accolades are further affirmation from the industry and our customers that we are on the right track and need to cement the work we have been doing to provide our customers with the seamless experience they have come to expect from MTN.”

Article in Seacom website

The Guardian Nigeria

Gadget Magazine

Wireless solutions provider Comsol, a Convergence Partners investee, started the R2-million installation of its new wireless multiservice wide-area network (WAN) solution at ferrochrome producer Samancor Chrome’s project sites, in Mpumalanga and the North West, in September.

Comsol chief commercial officer Darren Morgan tells Mining Weekly that the contract entails the installation of customised carrier-class high-speed wireless links to connect Samancor Chrome’s different sites.

“We will connect all the sites over hundreds of kilometres, using wireless circuits through a series of repeat sites. Instead of using cable infrastructure, we are using wireless point-to-point technology,” he explains.

Radio links are supplied to Samancor Chrome’s critical sites, which include Tubatse Ferrochrome, at Steelpoort, Ferrometals, at Witbank, Middelburg Ferrochrome, at Middelburg, Western Chrome Mines’ Mooinooi and Millsell operations, located at Mooinooi and just outside of Rustenburg respectively, as well as the company’s head office in Sandton, Gauteng.

Phase 1 of the project connected the Steelpoort, Middelburg and Witbank sites with 25 Mb/s radio links. Middelburg is the main hub, as all the centralised applications and systems applications and products are hosted there.

Morgan says the new managed WAN service is crucial to Samancor Chrome, as the company runs centralised systems and, more specifically, a centralised financial system.

“These systems are fully dependent on the capacity and quality of the WAN connectivity. Any disruption to the WAN connectivity leads to the centralised systems shutting down,” he adds.

Further, Morgan says that 48 V power backup systems have been installed at some repeat sites and the radio-frequency hardware is about 50% complete. He expects the installation project to be completed in October.

“This system will assist in improving communication between sites, which will contribute significantly to process efficiency and transparency, as faulty areas will be more easily identified,” he states.

Morgan says Comsol aims to assist several mining houses, including Anglo American, Kumba Iron Ore and Exxaro, with various wireless control solutions.

“We are also in the process of rolling out an extensive Layer-2 access network using the Comsol owned national 28 Ghz spectrum. This will provide high-capacity carrier-of-carriers access services to our partners,” he adds.

Further, he states that the company’s outlook for the future is optimistic, owing to the continued pressure on the general South African telecommunications environment to provide higher capacity and more services. Morgan believes this will ensure that Comsol’s solutions remain relevant.

Article from Mining Weekly

Tax incentives, a job-creation fund and digital TV migration are heralding a golden opportunity for the South African information, communications and technology (ICT) industry, according to the Chairman of Convergence Partners and Executive Chairman of Dimension Data Middle East and Africa.

Speaking after President Jacob Zuma delivered his State of the Nation address to Parliament on Thursday, Ngcaba said the measures announced meant that companies could confidently roll out infrastructure such as fibre-optic cables to improve connectivity in the country.

“The country needs thousands of kilometres of cable in order to improve connectivity as more and more undersea cables land,” he said.

Zuma announced three measures that would help create five million jobs over the next 10 years. These were: the R9-billion job-creation scheme, R20 billion in incentives and tax breaks aimed mainly at manufacturing; and R10 billion from the Industrial Development Corporation.

“Then the President also announced that the country would go ahead with digital TV migration that is a wonderful opportunity for the sector,” Ngcaba said.

SA is converting its national broadcast system from an aged analogue service to digital.

“This means that set-top boxes will have to be made here and there is a whole manufacturing plan,” Ngcaba said.

He said at least R10million households would have to have these devices installed. I-Net Bridge.

See attached article

Having attended the Mobile World Congress, the largest global telecoms conference (attended by 49,000 visitors from 200 countries) in Barcelona this year, the following 10 key trends and developments came to the fore.

The 10 major developments at MWC were:

1. Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (“GSMA”) and about 15 major operators have signed up to create an application planet where there will be a common platform that will allow application developers in the Symbian world to operate across networks and geographies (i.e. a challenge to Apple’s dominance in the apps space);
2. The affordability of smartphones are becoming a reality, with estimates that by 2015 approximately 50% of mobile phones will be smartphones. This will require larger amounts of backhaul bandwidth for the mobile networks. Once smart phones reach 70% of the market, they will be the single largest access device to the internet;
3. Mobile operators see device-to-device connectivity as the next revenue opportunity in the mobile space. These data flows are viewed as a mechanism to bolster declining voice ARPUs;
4. Green technology, especially in the data centre environment and the growth of cloud computing, is a major trend that will accelerate in the coming years;
5. The growth of smart devices on one side and sophisticated cloud computing on the other will drive growth in “intelligent pipes” in between them. This reinforces the case for increased access to fibre optic networks;
6. Here is a thought, as you go to a restaurant to have coffee or food when you pay with your credit card and you are given a receipt. Use your smartphone with high-resolution camera to take a photo of the receipt and store it or send it to your private data vault. Intelligent systems in the cloud will then collate and reconcile receipts and expense claims automatically.
7. In my view LTE is 3+ years away. No handsets are widely available. While people are talking about LTE trials, large scale deployments are still some way off, however, the hype is here. This is another reason why we need backhaul bandwidth now so that when LTE is implemented there are enough pipes to support this infrastructure;
8. Africa will continue to use mobile devices as the primary means to access the cloud;
9. Africa must develop its own applications that are specific to Africa’s needs. Including its own social network platforms that will address Africa’s unique lifestyles;
10. In conclusion, the communications ecosystem is evolving, but it is not clear which organisations will be absorbed by black holes or collide with each other to create new planets in our ecosystem. The ICT ecosystem at one level and the DNA of organisations and companies at another, will fundamentally change in the next ten years.

TechCentral, leading online technology website, has named Seacom President, Brian Herlihy as “the obvious choice” for Newsmaker of the Year for 2009. Seacom went live in July 2009 and has already resulted in dramatic price reductions and new investments in terrestrial infrastructure in East Africa.

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