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

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

The Convergence Partners stand was a hive of activity for the duration of the event (especially when our gorgeous ladies served up some great cocktails at the end of day 1). Companies in the Convergence Partners stand that were formally exhibiting at AfricaCom included Seacom, Convergence Wireless Networks (comprising WiA and Intra), Intelsat New Dawn Satellite Project, Plessey, Comsol, Integrat, Skillpod Media, Bloodhound, Inala, Convergence Border Management Solutions, as well as the Convergence Partners Foundation.

AfircaCom also coincided with the media launch of Convergence Partners’ latest project, FibreCo (see below blog).

The main themes discussed at the conference this year centred around:

• infrastructure sharing and managed services – in light of declining ARPUs, operators are seeking significant cost reduction models;
• rural connectivity – the next major untapped market, although sustainable, scalable models remain challenging; and
• the continuing shift from voice services (still the majority of the industry revenue base) to data and VAS, driven by the proliferation of broadband hungry smartphones.

Skillpod Media CEO Mark van Diggelen said: “AfricaCom was SkillPod Media’s first exposure to a mobile / telco trade event, we used it to showcase our new online and mobile platforms and experienced resoundingly positive feedback from the industry, resulting in a number of key contacts been met, with whom discussions have started. Further to this the professionalism of the Convergence stand drew in a plethora of delegates, all interested in better understanding the services on offer by SkillPod, again resulting in a lot of contacts being made with industry players, wishing to provide services to our overall offering and make use of a number of our services for their solutions. Overall the event was a resounding success, in that our new solutions were warmly received, we managed to network with key contacts, either at the stand or at the various networking events and more so we interacted with a number of key industry players that highlighted a number of opportunities, that we’d previously never considered.

According to Darren Morgan, Head of Sales at Comsol, “AfricaCom was a wonderful experience this year, it’s always great to be under one roof with all the peers of your industry. It’s rare to have all vendors, suppliers, integrators and customers from a certain industry in the same place at the same time and this certainly makes the event a memorable one. This year we were lucky enough to share a stand with fellow companies involved with the Convergence Partners family and that certainly added to the event for us.  A fantastic experience all round”.

Integrat Director, Leonard Cremer said: “The Convergence stand was a great initiative and Integrat will definitely be joining again next year. Integrat not only benefited by exhibiting at the show but also believes it extracted real value from the networking between the Convergence companies”.

We look forward to seeing everyone again in 2011!

See attached pics

Comsol reports that wireless 
telecoms networks and their maintenance are a growing focus among private clients, as the costs of owning and maintaining a private network soar.

Large companies across many vertical markets, especially mining operators, are increasingly looking to wireless networks to provide communications solutions between different parts of the organisation. This is in part owing to capital still being difficult to raise in the uncertain and volatile post-
recession period, the company says.

Comsol sales manager Darren Morgan says that wireless communications networks provide a reliable alternative to laying wires for a similar network. Wireless networks provide high-speed connections, reduced maintenance and are able to cover large distances in remote areas.

Morgan notes that, in the realm of wireless communications, the greatest threat to hardware life-cycle costs is technological advances. 
This often prompts whole networks to be upgraded before the hardware has reached the end of its service life, owing to it being technologically inferior. This is why Comsol offers fully managed services, where equipment is owned by Comsol and the service it provides is offered on an operating expenditure basis.

Morgan explains that the older technology would then be redeployed elsewhere, or redis-
tributed through Comsol’s retail outlets. The client’s network will be upgraded, while the service fees will be increased in relation to the speed of the new network.

Comsol offers a wide range of implementation and maintenance contracts, tailored to specific client needs. Morgan says that clients may choose to own the network hardware, and contract Comsol to perform maintenance. 
Clients have access to a 24/7 call centre to report any failures, the company reports.

Clients may also opt for a comprehensive solution, where Comsol owns the wireless network, and installs and maintains it to client specifications. Such networks are typically under constant surveillance from a remote control office. Technicians monitor all 
aspects of the network, including energy management, hardware cooling and availability, 
and regular maintenance is carried out.

An advantage in opting for this contract is that clients do not incur the 
depreciation of the hardware, and are not responsible for maintaining the network, Comsol states.

“Mines favour our networks, owing to commercial telecommunications operators usually not having networks in the often rural settings in which they 
operate.

“By using their own network, miners are able to reduce the number of connections to commercial communications service providers, by communicating 
internally over vast distances,” he explains.

While wireless networks can be deployed almost instantaneously, a number of contractors involved with the construction of State-owned power utility Eskom’s new coal-fired Medupi power station needed a quick and reliable communications network, from Gauteng to the Limpopo site.

“We are currently able to provide about 60 contractors with independent, reliable wireless communications networks. Individual networks were implemented, so that contractors do not have to contend among themselves for the available bandwidth,” he explains.

The company also reports being involved in the design, construction and maintenance of a 
1 200-km link in Kenya. Morgan notes that, given the vast distances involved in the link, the use of a wireless network reduces the amount of maintenance needed, 
when compared with those of conventional systems.

“The amount of paperwork, in the form of applications to local authorities and to acquire land rights, is also 
reduced, resulting in faster implementation times,” he says.

Further, Comsol reports that it maintains aggressive service level agreements (SLAs) that 
ensure speedy service delivery. The company has a number of 
offices spread across South Africa to reduce its response times to failures, as agreed in its rigorous SLAs.

“On average, the company achieves a seven-hour response time to failures at some of our most remote clients.

“Should we fail to deliver on our SLAs, we have agreed to
severe penalties,” he says.

See attached link

New Dawn, the first of its kind joint venture between Convergence Partners and Intelsat, is on track to launch its $250m geostationary communications satellite, which is targeted at the African market, by the end of the year, Flavien Bachabi, vice-president for Intelsat Africa said yesterday, 13 April 2010.

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Convergence Wireless Networks (Convergence Wireless), a joint venture between Convergence Partners and Comsol Wireless Solutions (Comsol), today announced that it has acquired a 35% stake in WIA Company Limited (WIA), a Tanzanian wireless connectivity provider focused on the enterprise market segment.

Convergence Wireless will take on an active role in the business by providing high-level support at a strategic and operational level but also facilitate access to resources across the wider Convergence Partners network to accelerate WIA’s evolution into a fully fledged converged communications solutions provider. Comsol will act as WIA’s technology partner bringing significant knowledge and expertise in the deployment of world-class wireless broadband networks.

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Communication Solutions (Comsol) in partnership with one of its shareholders Convergence Partners is seeking to build a portfolio of wireless broadband data operations across multiple countries in Africa. A new investment company called Convergence Wireless Networks (CWN) has been formed for this purpose.

CWN will investigate opportunities to secure spectrum/licences in high economic growth areas in Africa with a view to participating in the roll-out of networks (as a strategic, minority financial investor) in those markets. “The potential for growth in wireless broadband usage across the continent is massive given the low existing base of penetration,” says Iain Stevenson, CEO of Comsol. Currently the total number of broadband connections in Africa numbers approximately less than 3 million, the majority of which are 3G connections.

Stevenson says that CWN will take up strategic equity interests in and supply value-added services across the entire wireless broadband market in Africa from equipment supply, to network installation, ongoing network maintenance, licensed spectrum acquisition, wholesale network operation and even ultimately to retail network operations. “CWN will work in conjunction with local country partners and existing players either in the technology arena or existing network operators,” says Brandon Doyle MD of Convergence Partners.

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WiMAX is this technology (the so-called “elephant in the room”): standards have been passed, mobility will soon be enabled, and the cost of its rollout can be achieved at a fraction of the cost of the capital requirements of a 3G network. The equipment is robust and manufacturers are pressing on with chip developments for the new generation mobile devices.

So why then does LTE continue to exist? In our view the answer to this question lies in the following:

• Resistance from some existing network operators;
• Limited availability of spectrum; and
• WiMAX mobility is only starting to look possible.

Nonetheless, in this report we demonstrate that WiMAX serves as a cheap and viable solution to Africa’s wireless broadband needs, and is a serious contender that can be implemented by existing GSM operators and is in fact already being rolled out.

View the full report