LIGHT FIBRE INFRASTRUCTURE: Digging Deep to Deliver Digital Inclusion

Fibre roll out in South Africa is both encouraging and disappointing at the same time. The need for reliable, high-quality, high-speed internet connectivity is no longer debated. It is today viewed by many as a human right; a driver of inclusivity, and a tool for advancing society. The digital revolution has resulted in a time where without connectivity it is difficult to participate in a modern, changing world.

But the country’s fibre roll out has been slow. Even today, as the most advanced economy on the continent, South Africa ranks 89^th in the world and sits behind Ghana in Africa in ranking of mobile and fixed broadband speeds from around the world.

Much is being done to improve the situation which still sees many communities rely on expensive cellular data packages. In the government’s State of the ICT Sector report for 2020 from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), figures suggested huge improvements in fibre roll out with a 5000% improvement in fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and fibre-to-the-business (FTTB) subscriptions between 2015 and 2019.

According to the report, South Africa had 1.6 million fibre customers by 2019, up from only 31,843 in 2015. But, despite success in the major metros, large swathes of the country remain under-connected; and some of the big telecoms companies have slowed their rollout of fibre network.

However, the opportunities remain titanic and Johannesburg-based Light Fibre Infrastructure is busy working to bring connectivity to the whole of South Africa.

“There is still a large portion of long-haul infrastructure to be developed around southern Africa. We are busy with some smaller, although sizable, projects currently. We have identified a number of significant and sustainable projects in the future on the long-haul side,” says General Manager, Pat Kimmince.

Celebrating the recent completion of the Durban to Cape Town NLD5/6 – a 1700km fibre route traversing the country down the east coast – Light Fibre Infrastructure continues to solidify its position as one of South Africa’s industry leaders when it comes to turnkey long-haul telecommunications and utility infrastructure.

“There is a tremendous amount of infrastructure to be developed, not just from this project, but from a lot of the previous projects we have been involved with as, effectively, we have been building backbones for the various service providers around the country. That has covered a lot of the main territories and towns across the route but there is still plenty of opportunity in terms of taking high-speed, reliable, high-quality interconnection services to many communities that are still reliant on the old cellular network towers which, as we all know, from a capacity, quality and speed point of view are nowhere near the technological abilities that we are building. There are massive opportunities in many communities all over the country.”

NLD5/6

Connecting Durban and Cape Town, this exciting mega project saw Light Fibre Infrastructure contracted by Liquid Intelligent Technologies. through Gqeberha and East London, the fibre brings new prospects to many communities through KZN, the Eastern Cape, and the Western Cape.

“A project on this scale takes an incredible amount of planning and regulatory approvals,” says Kimmince. “We started towards the end of 2017, the programme started to get momentum in 2018, and we closed it out at the end of 2020. All the big telco businesses are part of it in some way.”

By modernising this section of the country’s network, Light Fibre Infrastructure is readying South Africa for 5G and the fourth industrial revolution. This new infrastructure also incorporates connections with the east and west coast undersea cable systems, located at Mtunzini (EASSY), Dynefontein (ACE) and Yzerfontein (WACS).

“There are a couple of international landing sites that come into this route and South Africa is a key point with a lot of data centres here, storing data for many of the well-known international corporates. Because of the location and cost structure, South Africa is a favoured destination for global data centre infrastructure and this development is a key enabler,” details Kimmince.

The challenge for this project and for Light Fibre is not the intricacies of the construction work, but the scale of the work across such a large area and the engagement with the many different local communities. This is where the company applied extensive industry knowledge but was happy to learn at the same time.

“At one stage during that project, we were working on four different sections at once, covering over 500km. The logistics, management, and quality assurance were challenging.

“In the second stage, we were working on four sections over a 700km distance and we upscaled significantly for that. Based on the size of the projects and the time deadlines, the company, through a structured approach, expands or contracts slightly. We are busy with a number of other projects currently.

“Dealing with local SMMEs and communities is a challenge on its own and we learnt a lot very quickly. In South Africa, if you’re going in and not engaging with local communities, you build a lot of resistance very quickly. We built a team to negotiate in various forums to pave the way for the future,” explains Kimmince.

This future looks bright for those communities where reliable, consistent internet access will drive opportunities. With corporations like MTN, Vodacom and Telkom driving the rollout and promising billions of Rand over the coming years, closing connectivity gaps is clearly a priority.   

“This project brought about the securing of fibre optics all the way down the coast, through communities who in the past had access to cellular network communications but were restricted because of the nature of that model with capacity and speed limitations. This is a very important piece of infrastructure development in terms of the bigger picture for the country because it’s a key enabler, bringing high-speed, high-quality internet services to the larger population. Government institutions, schools, clinics, local business, and the local population can now receive cheaper, more reliable, faster, better capacity internet and wireless solutions. It is playing a pivotal role in enabling government to roll out all of these strategies,” confirms Kimmince.

MTN is equally proud of the milestone project, with Chief Technology & Information Officer at MTN SA, Giovanni Chiarelli saying: “The project gives MTN an opportunity to provide additional and significant capacity between coastal cities and the rest of SA, ensuring the digital world is brought one step closer for many more people. At MTN, we are committed to improving the network experience of our customers. We look forward to welcoming many more users to the cutting-edge digital world now on our doorstep.”

As projects that will enhance the future state of the industry in South Africa quickly begin to gain momentum, Light Fibre Infrastructure has proven its abilities and shines as the standout partner for long-haul infrastructure construction.

“We have been faced with many challenges – going right down the coast of a country, we had to cross every river. There were thousands of rivers, estuaries, and structures. You would never realise when driving down the route in a car, but the scale of work and the technical requirements imposed upon us taught us a lot of lessons and we have enhanced our skillset. From an innovation point of view, it’s been a wonderful learning curve.

“A project of this magnitude would never have been possible without the incredible teamwork, commitment, dedication and tenacity of the entire Operations, Quality Assurance, Health and Safety Team, and support structures both on site and from our Head Office. We have an amazing team who rise up, above whatever challenges are faced, and always find the best solution.”

COVID REROUTE

Even in the lightning digital world of fibre connectivity, where fibre optic cables are used to transfer information instead of traditional copper cables, slowdowns can occur. Like most industries, the progress of fibre rollout was impacted by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, and work slowed to a halt as South Africa moved into a severe lockdown.

“Everything was shut down,” remembers Kimmince. “We had a fibre team that didn’t stop working as those routes were critical for the enablement of transfer of data between government departments and businesses.

He says that this period of delay and inactivity hit the company from a productivity and cost perspective, initiating several challenges that had never been seen before. Light Fibre Infrastructure sent all construction staff home to ensure safety. The company then had to apply for the rights to work as an essential provider.

“We also had to develop the protocols for working with social distancing, monitoring and many other things,” says Kimmince. “We had anticipated this as a business and we had previously developed a risk profile plan. We split and mitigated risk across the management structure to ensure, from a strategic and support point of view, the business wouldn’t fail if we had virus run through the company. In a structured way, we quickly looked at getting the teams back to work as soon as possible because of the national importance of the project we were working on.

“It was just two weeks from the start of the lockdown for us to get everything in place before getting the teams back on site. There were implications as we had to stick to strict protocols around social distancing, manage the cost of PPE, organise travel from site camps to construction sites with roadblocks in place, and much more.”  

The result of the company’s fastidious planning was the successful navigation of the early months of the crisis, and continued success on site. “For the first five months, we didn’t have any Covid positives within our structures. We learnt a lot of lessons about how agile and fast we can address challenges without having to close our doors like so many others did,” enthuses Kimmince.

FUTURE PROOFED

There is no question that investment will continue to roll in across Africa when it comes to connectivity provision as a growing, young, tech savvy population demands access to the rest of the world. In 2013, the South African government started South Africa Connect, a policy that would see the whole country effectively connected by 2030. While work is still required to meet this ambitious target, the foundations are beginning to take shape. Light Fibre itself has put down more than 5500km of infrastructure, negotiating future work across the border and around southern Africa. A 2018 MyBroadband survey across a large range found that lack of availability was the main reason behind people not taking up fibre subscriptions.

As the sector advances, Light Fibre will grow. “We’re a full in-house turnkey solution company. From conception to survey to design to concept solution, through all technical planning, permission granting and project management on behalf of the client – the operational side, supply chain support, logistical close out, technical fibre design, and optimisation and roll out, through to project close out – we have great expertise,” says Kimmince.

In August, it was announced that Facebook and partners would improve subsea cable connections with a new infrastructure project designed to advance speed and connections around the continent. New connections will be made into the Indian Ocean Islands, Comoros, the Canary Islands and more, and exciting infrastructure will be implemented in South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

With the major opportunities available in what remains a relatively untapped market, investors continue to realise returns to this booming area.

“We have increased our client base and we have attracted new clients across a range of smaller projects,” says Kimmince.

“We have expanded to not just include long-haul infrastructure development but we have become specialists in going through all the towns and cities.

“We have also focussed on building our own network where we have a division responsible for operating that network. We have developed into a company that enables internet service providers (ISP) by building for them directly, as well as our sister company which runs as a registered ISP. We’ve taken that offering into a number of large estates and we have a few thousand clients on board now. We will be expanding that further, particularly into the business side where we will take internet services to the business fraternity,” he adds.

For Light Fibre, the industry is exciting and holds great potential. For nine years, this is a business that has proven its worth, adding high-quality capacity where it is most needed. Contributing to national development and projects which uplift South Africa, Light Fibre remains at the start of a long journey in long-haul infrastructure.

“We are very entrepreneurial here,” concludes Kimmince. “We identify opportunities, scale quickly, and provide solutions that meet specific, individual needs.”