Unwiring 2010 World Cup
Ever since the selection of South Africa as the host of 2010 FIFA Football world cup, the bustling city of Polokwane has really started to come alive. Situated in ‘a sea of grasslands interrupted by rounded granite kopies' (as summed up by a travel writer on city of Polokwane), Polokwane will serve as a venue for the World's most popular game and preparations are in full swing to spruce up the Peter Mokaba Stadium.
As the capital and commercial heartland of Limpopo Province , Polokwane is a major business destination with modern sophisticated infrastructure that competes with the finest in South Africa . The impressive, elegant historical buildings have been restored to serve as museums and heritage sites. In short Polokwane is a city of art and culture.
To improve its communication services and also to gear up for the World Cup, the city of Polokwane decided to improve its communications infrastructure across the city. After thorough analysis of options like fiber optics and copper cables, a wireless solution was chosen.
The selection of smartBridges radios itself involved a series of tests which also involved other vendors like Proxim, Alvarion and Motorola Canopy. After thorough tests, SCAN RF in partnership with Meso ICT Solutions selected smartBridges Nexus platform to provide the communication infrastructure for the world cup venues. The decision clincher was the Nexus' low price/performance ratio. The initial deployment area provides broadband connectivity to the metro areas and the suburbs. This meant coverage of up to 20km from the city centre in each direction. The initial phase involved deployment of 60 Nexus radios (30-links) for distances covering 2km to 23km.
The Network
The network consists of smartBridges backhaul point to point equipment to provide reliable links
from remote offices within the municipal area.
The heart of the network is the Municipal Office (Civic Office) from where a PSTN line is tapped into the network. Using 23 dBi directional radios and PTP links consisting of pairs of Nexus, connectivity is provided for Alwynkop and AasvoelKop. From Alwynkop, the network extends to provide connectivity to the Peter Mokaba Stadium and Mankweng Hospital and offices around. Local libraries, sewage plants, houses and offices have been able to tap into the network and enjoy broadband connectivity.
Jan van Wyk, Managing Director, SCAN RF says “We are very pleased with smartBridges radios. We tried the competitive radios but they did not function well. smartBridges radios are easy to configure and once powered up and bring them live, they require little or no attention ”.
SCAN RF along with Meso ICT has entered into a service level agreement with the Municipality of Polokwane which demonstrates their commitment to the project as well as their trust in the equipment to perform consistently throughout. Additional localities will be added onto the network on quarterly basis.
About SCAN RF
SCAN RF offers Wireless telecommunications products and services that are cost effective, fast to deploy, flexible, easy to use, upgradeable, and re-deployable. With these products and services they provide their customers with superior telecommunications infrastructures for their voice, data and video transmission requirements focusing more and more on IP triple play vis-à-vis other technologies.
SCAN RF products offer a rich variety of end-user services such as Voice over IP (VoIP), security and Quality of Service (QoS). The SCAN RF family of products operates in the license-free 2.4 & 5.8 Ghz ISM bands. A vendor of choice for broadband wireless radios is smartBridges.
