RF connectivity over water - PetroSA

PetroSA is a subsidiary of the Central Energy Fund which is a wholly state-owned entity and is responsible for exploration and production of natural oil and gas.  They needed a ship-to-shore wireless solution to link a refinery to an oil rig 80 kilometres offshore to support voice and data services, and the only way to get to the rig was by helicopter.

The uniqueness of the solution became apparent as the initial site survey unveiled the peculiar conditions in which the telecommunications link needed to be established. The link comprised of a point-to-point solution providing 20 Mbps of aggregate capacity.  Advanced RF equipment had to be procured that could operate in the niche 1.4GHz frequency range  to address the issue of reflection off the water, which would otherwise have distorted the signal and caused the connection to fail (this is known as the ducting phenomenon).

The challenges with a project like this include:

• The vast amount of water and the curvature of the earth made alignment     difficult and special equipment had to be used to overcome the ducting effect;
• Movement of the buoy on rough seas proved challenging when it came to installing, aligning and maintaining the equipment;

• Special permission had to be obtained and a unique design by structural engineers was required to mount the 3 metre antennas on to the platform;

• The execution area was considered highly hazardous because of the fact that production deals mainly with oil and gas which is highly flammable, which meant that the equipment had to be deemed safe for long term use as well.

The benefit of the new system, however, was that the process control systems used by PetroSA was based on old analogue technology which could not be replaced at the time.  These systems were supported through various telecommunications systems which have since then, become obsolete.  The integrated and modernised telecommunications put in place by Comsol however, could accommodate these legacy process control  systems. 

The Case for LMDS against WiMax

WiMax was hyped by industry experts to be the solution to all kinds of ills besetting the telecommunication access industry. This has not yet happened in South Africa.  The reasons for this are manifold. In my opinion, ICASA has dragged its feet and made wrong decisions regarding spectrum allocations for this service. Entities like Sentech, Telkom, et cetera have had a first bite at the apple, so to speak. Unfortunately, the public saw very little of this technology due to the incumbent still trying to leverage of its monopoly of owning the local access loop. Sentech's first priority was the distribution of broadcasting services.


The net result was that valuable RF spectrum was lying fallow and not being used to provide connectivity in under-serviced areas. Private industry tried unsuccessfully to petition ICASA to release some of this spectrum which would enable the provision of such services. Currently, we are still waiting on ICASA to release WiMax spectrum through some sort of auction process that may or may not make the WiMax service expensive. Many organisations might receive RF spectrum with limited channel bandwidth, limiting the expected throughput that might be delivered to a client. This limited bandwidth (speed) will probably place WiMax on a par with the bandwidth achieved by ADSL technologies. The window of opportunity for WiMax to provide services, is closing because of these delays and issues.

With this in mind, it can be seen that any mid-size to larger organizations cannot effectively rely on WiMax as a technology, to provide acceptable solutions to their connectivity requirements. An older technology, LMDS, seems to be a valuable alternative. This technology does not pretend to offer mobility like WiMax, instead it has a value proposition regarding fixed sites requiring high bandwidth, symmetric services. This is the type of service that businesses require. ICASA also does not view the higher frequency spectrum of LMDS services to be as valuable as WiMax spectrum, making it more easily accessible by network operators.

Considering the previous points, I believe that we might see a quiet revolution away from WiMax to LMDS in South Africa as it has an immediate business benefit to network operators to effectively provide access services to their clients. This will continue until users demand even higher bandwidths to provide a true alternative to the invasion of fibre optical media into their businesses. Maybe by then, there will be light at the end of the tunnel.    




Matie Strydom

Chief Technical Officer

Comsol Office Move

Please note that as of Monday 31 October 2011, Comsol Head Office will be located at:

152 Roan Crescent

Corporate Park North

Midrand

Gauteng

Kindly contact us on +27 (0)87 361 1305 or click here for a map.

Local loop unbundling: Just what is all the fuss about and why should a wireless company care?

Many moons ago, governments realised that they had to provide telecommunication infrastructure to the populace in order for them to telecommunicate. In most countries this was done with tax-payer’s money, under the guise of state owned monopolies.

How did this work?

Well, if Joe Soap wanted a telephone line, he would call the incumbent telephone company (in our case Telkom) and place an order for a service. Telkom would then run a copper wire from his house to their nearest exchange, sell him a telephone handset and " Presto!" the customer could make calls to his grandmother.

Now, in order for these calls to be possible, the exchange that Joe Soap was connected to had to be connected to the exchange that his grandmother was connected to. This interconnection of exchanges was accomplished through a vast network that was also sponsored by Tax payers as and when growth demanded.This system worked very well, except for one small problem: Private enterprise could never ever compete fairly with these huge monopolies, resulting in an environment where consumers had no freedom of choice.

What exasperated this problem even more in most countries, was the fact that these monopolies had protection under law from any competition. They were the only people allowed to lay copper and fibre, build wireless networks and provide circuits between exchanges.

This protection was largely diminished in South Africa when the local regulatory environment was relaxed under the new ECA (Electronic Communications Act), but public sector companies are still decades behind in building infrastructure that equals the scale of the previous state-owned Telkom.
Building the core of a network; that part where the switching and routing of calls and data happens; is faster to do than getting wires to Joe Soap and his grandmother's homes, for the obvious reasons of sheer numbers of subscribers and vast distances required to be covered.

These wires between the exchanges and the end-users' homes, are what is known as the local loop.
There are two distinguishable parts to the local loop:

1. The actual pairs of copper cable.
2. The voice and data that is carried across these wires.

Governments have realised that there is an unfair challenge for newly empowered, private sector companies when competing to get to these customers, and have thus decided to allow these companies access to the existing wires in the ground that the tax payers paid for in the first place.
This process of giving access to the wires in the ground to private companies, is what is known as unbundling of the local loop.

There are, however, disparaging views on unbundling.
On the one hand, people argue that by unbundling the local loop, governments would be discouraging investment in newer technologies and advanced infrastructure by the new kids on the block. Why would “123-We-Connect-U” spend money on better infrastructure, if it could use the existing infrastructure at a fraction of the current costs?

Surely these companies would much rather spend this money on advertising and building superior core networks that would place Telkom at a disadvantage.

How would the maintenance of these local loops be handled? 
Who would carry the costs?
And to what extent should new companies be allowed access to the local loop?
Should they get access to the services on top of the cable, or even to the cable itself?

On the flip side of the coin is the argument for unbundling, which says we, the consumers, paid for these networks and then government just gave it away when it was privatised. That’s not fair is it?
This process in South Africa dates back to as far as 2006, when the then minister of communications announced the appointment of the Local Loop Unbundling Committee.

On 22 June of this year ICASA published their view in light of the ministerial instructions, in a Discussion Paper for comment on this matter by stakeholders. (Gov. Gazette # 34382 / Notice 409 of 2011) If this matter is of interest to you I recommend that you read this paper in detail.
In a nutshell, ICASA holds the view that the local loop has, in fact, already been unbundled.
Really?

Their view is as follows:
Section 43 of the ECA already compels license holders to lease facilities to other licensees.
Facilities that have to be leased include, but are not limited to:
• Wire
• Cable
• Mast
• Radio apparatus
• Space on and in poles, ducts, cable trays etc.

On May 31 2010, the Electronic Facilities Leasing Regulations were published, regulating these leasing conditions and obligations. The regulator thus believes that all that is left to conclude is a standard that needs to be adhered to when requesting access.

The June 22 Discussion Paper asked the relevant stakeholders for their input. This input had to be submitted by 26 August. In other words, like so many things in this beautiful country of ours, the legislative framework exists for ECS and ECNS license holders to get whole-sale and non-discriminatory access to the local loop, as well as other facilities, (like masts, poles and radio apparatus) yet I feel that it will take a court action like the Altech vs The Minister of Communications case, before we will see broad applicaton of this process.

Let's see what the stake-holders present and what action follows from this latest attempt to get cheaper communications to all South Africans.

Are they all afraid that they might end up giving more than what they can take?
Will ISPA take a lead in fighting the consumer’s right to cheaper calls and data?

I for one will be watching with bated breath.

Rico du Plessis
Chief Operations Officer

Saving costs on Microsoft Office

The cost of IT (hardware or software) is ever increasing in our day and age….or so it feels at least. The past 20 years have moved at the speed of light but the one biggest IT inventions of the past 20 years has been the internet. Can any of us predict the next evolution or progression of this technology? I know I can’t.

One should however, question how the internet can add value in one’s life? Now I think we can all quickly answer:

1. I no longer need to spend hours in a library to research encyclopaedias, I can just “Google it”.
2. I can store all my media on my Facebook profile (photo albums do not need to sit on a shelf gathering dust).
3. I have a voice through Mixit, Twitter, Gmail etc.

With all this said, the new kid on the block is called “cloud computing”. What is cloud computing? It is not a piece of soft cotton I can tell you that.

Cloud computing refers to services available on the internet, usually at no charge…such as Facebook, Google etc.  Until recently, cloud computing has been directed at the individual more so than companies. This however is changing and it is changing at a rapid pace. We now need to educate ourselves about cloud computing and what exactly is available.

The purpose of this piece is to inform you that one of the most basic and most used software platforms is now available in “the cloud”.  That’s right; you can get Microsoft Office online. You no longer need to buy Microsoft Office. All you require is an internet connection and voilà, Bob’s your uncle. Microsoft Office is free on the cloud!

Brilliant isn’t it? Well that depends whether you have quality bandwidth and access to it at all times. As indicated above, the only thing you need (besides a computer) is an internet connection when you want to use it. So that is the catch 22.

I hope that the CFOs’ and Financial Directors’ ears are peaking up, as this is significant. Imagine all the software costs that companies can save if this is structured correctly. Yearly licence fees will be something of the past. Want to test it for yourself? Go to Skydrive info. Create your own Windows Live ID today and start testing it (http://skydrive.live.com/). This is just s taste of what is available on the cloud.

Just remember, you need a quality, uninterrupted internet connection to make this work. We have a responsibility today to invest in robust telecommunication infrastructure for our children and their children.

Enjoy the cloud!!!

Alec Candiotes

Chief Financial Officer

Selling technology as opposed to the technology of selling

Selling technology is a very specific portion of the overall genre of selling.  Sales in itself is often, and in some cases with good reason, known as the “Dark Arts”.  Everyone has had some kind of encounter with this, from the persistence of telesales people down to the smooth operator punting a multi-million Rand marketing campaign, we all at some time get exposed to someone trying to sell us something.

The key in all of this is being able to identify what is being sold to us as opposed to the person doing the selling and it is this fundamental concept that forms the basis of our sales philosophy at Comsol.  We are in the fortunate position of being able to offer a quality product to our market as opposed to the poor road warrior who tries his utmost to sell an inferior product in order to make his quota.

While this in no way means we can be complacent as a sales division, it does allow us the crucial advantage of being able to engage with customers knowing that what we are offering is truly something that the market wants.  It allows Comsol’s sales professionals to show full transparency to customers, secure in the knowledge that our offering is one of quality.

I am a firm believer that sales people can only be truly effective if they believe in the product they are selling and pass this passion on to customers.  The metronomic sales person who relies on a tired and worn sales pitch will never be truly effective in the dynamic world of selling technology.....perhaps pencils....but not world class, multi-million Rand networks..

Bearing all of this in mind, I can confidently say that while we may not have divisions of hundreds of salespeople at Comsol and while we may not cut it in the world of selling gym contracts, we certainly do have a focussed, knowledgeable and passionate team of sales professionals who believe in what Comsol as a business offers to the world of Telecommunications.  And it is this personality trait as opposed to the generic, silky sales skills of the “pre-owned” car salesman that drives Comsol to even greater success.

Darren Morgan

Chief Commercial Officer

CFO's advice for credit cards

I must be honest I have a love-hate relationship with my credit card/s (yes I unfortunately have 2). There are many reasons to have and to shred a credit card. At the end of the day it all comes down to self-control, commitment and discipline. However I have put some of my thoughts on the matter out below:

Advantages

The advantages for the common folk are endless. But to appreciate the real value of a credit card one needs to first understand the purpose of the credit card. A credit card is card issued by a financial institution which has an overdraft facility on it. This facility allows the user to spend money at his/her will on anything (obviously limited to the overdraft).

A credit card however is a short term loan facility and this can be validated by the high interest rates that are usually charged by the financial institutions when the holder goes into overdraft. I am thus a firm believer that you link your short term liabilities to your short term assets as long as the short term assets’ return is higher than the interest rate.  The advantage then is that you can purchase assets and sell it in the short term, make a higher return than the interest and be a little richer. The other big advantage is that it allows you to sleep at night.

Let me explain.  You have the comfort that should an unplanned event occur (such as a vehicle breakdown or you missing your flight whilst overseas and you suddenly need to change your flight time at R 1,500 per person (by the way this happened to me) etc. you know that you can pay for this immediately. However do not be too comfortable, because as you will soon learn, you will now have to repay the bill with interest.

So as I mentioned above the biggest advantage of a credit card, it teaches you to be disciplined…however usually only after you have maxed it out and can no longer use it, so be warned.

Disadvantages

There is a mountain of disadvantages, some of which I have eluded to above. The biggest disadvantage for me is that it creates a false sense of wealth. Many individuals feel they are wealthier because they have a credit card. The bigger the overdraft, the wealthier I am….NOT.

And this is a big NOT.

My father passed away in November 2010. He was the CEO of a well-established small business earning close to R 100k a month in salary. However at his death he had an overdraft facility of approximately R 15,000. Yes that was it. And the best of all is that he almost never used it. Now I believe that is real wealth. Now dealing with his estate I realize the true power of not having the burden of debt strangling you day in and day out.

So there is another disadvantage, the credit you run up on a credit card starts following you and eventually strangles you. You become so use to your credit card debt that you no longer notice it. It is just too easy to spend so why even worry about being in overdraft or not. Eventually you max out the card every month and top it up with your salary. I mentioned above that it is a good idea to buy short term assets which yields higher returns than your credit card with your credit card. Please do not confuse assets with your salary. Your salary does not yield anything but a dismissible amount of interest in a current/savings account (seriously I have seen trees grow quicker than my money in the bank).

Lastly the obvious disadvantage is the high interest rates that are usually charged on credit cards. This disadvantage speaks for itself.

How to use your credit card wisely

Here is the best tip on how to use your credit card wisely….do not use it at all. Save and then pay for your expenses.

But seriously, if you do not purchase assets that yield a higher return than your credit card interest it is not wise to use it. Another asset that I can however say may not be a bad idea (if you cannot get a study loan) is on your studies….as long as you know that your salary (the return) will be sufficient to enable you, once you get it, not to use it again and repay the capital and interest.

Once off purchases such as plane tickets, holidays, engagement rings are also something I am not against as I believe that you can settle this over a period. But note that this is a once a year thing and no more (discipline in repayment is the key!!).

How to get rid of your credit card debtHere is where you need a business plan, discipline and scissors. First thing I would do is cut up the card. This takes away the temptation to use it again.

The business plan would be a formal repayment forecast where you allocate a portion of your income to repaying the credit card. Do not stretch out the repayment term for too long i.e. "I will pay it off over the next 10 years". This will demotivate you and lead into excessive interest charges. A credit card plan should be no longer than 12 months (if you recall the purpose of a credit card is short term in nature and thus it should be repaid within the short term, which in the accounting world is deemed to be 12 months).

Lastly, as soon as you have drawn up the plan, STICK TO IT, come hell or high waters. If you do you will be so glad you did. However, if you do not, you incur more interest and again stand the change of being demotivated and accepting excuses which you may again accept in the next month and the next month and the…. You get the picture.

Well I hope that helped and that you are now more scared of the “monster” in your wallet, than the monster under your bed.

Alec Candiotes
Chief Financial Officer