The South African government has given higher education a funding boost to improve the long-neglected physical infrastructure of universities. But what academic are really excited about is the development of high-speed optical fibre ring networks that are expanding university bandwidth 35-fold and vastly increasing the speed and capacity of internet connections. The new South African National Research Network (SANReN) system will help to close the digital divide between this part of Africa and developed countries, and advance the capacity for research and collaboration with scholars locally and internationally. The universities of the Witwatersrand and Johannesburg were first to connect two weeks ago.

SANReN’s new 10 gigabytes-per-second service went live in Johannesburg on 31 March, connecting the main University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) campus and three University of Johannesburg campuses to an optical fibre ring that starts and ends at a location called the Reefhead Gateway. Next in line are three satellite campuses of Wits and the Johannesburg campus of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), whose Meraka Institute manages SANReN.

It is the first major step in creating an advanced information and communications technology platform for South African research. “We were on 28 megabytes-per-second and now we are on 1,000 mbps,” enthuses Brett Buchel, acting director of IT at Wits. “We are on a par with developed countries in Europe, and others such as Australia.”

In the next couple of years it is hoped that all universities will be connected to SANReN’s 10 gbps network – and by mid-2009 to the under-construction oceanic Seacom cable which runs up the east coast of Africa and will connect South Africa via the east coast town of Mtunzini to Europe as well as Mumbai in India. Universities currently rent space on the South Atlantic Telecommunications cable, SAT-3, which runs up Africa’s west coast.

SANReN, like other university NREN networks around the world – including Janet in the UK, Surfnet in the Netherlands and the biggest of all, Cernet in China – was set up to provide dedicated, restricted access to the world wide web.

In South Africa a predecessor network was run by the National Research Foundation, but in 1998 it was decided that universities should operate the service. The Tertiary Education Network, TENET, was created as a non-profit organisation in 2000, owned by its 40 member universities and research institutions. It secures internet services for universities – currently for around 80 sites – and provides operational services to SANReN including national and international connectivity. TENET’s operating costs are paid by its member institutions.

Until recently, the only telecommunications provider in South Africa that was licensed to run networks between premises and residences was the state-owned company Telkom. Recently a competitor called Neotel was licensed, and more will be licensed in future in a bid to rapidly expand, improve and lower the price of telecommunications in the country.

“We previously had no choice but to rent network capacity from Telkom,” says mathematician and TENET chief executive officer Duncan Martin. “But a sea-change has occurred.” On 1 April TENET switched the university network to Neotel, which now provides the infrastructure while one of the country’s biggest ISP servers, Internet Solutions, provides internet services. “Telkom has been very helpful in the switch-over, and still services a number of our sites.”

Teams from TENET, Wits, the University of Johannesburg and Neotel worked together to deploy the first SANReN optical fibre ring for the two universities. It was constructed on the backbone of Neotel’s flexible Next Generation Network and was custom built for SANReN. “All of our members will migrate to the new SANReN service over the next few years, as optical fibre rings are built around the country,” Martin says.

The SANReN project is sponsored by the government’s Department of Science and Technology and managed by the Meraka Institute. Neotel provided the optical fibre circuit for the Johannesburg ring, and SANReN provided the network equipment.

“Access to high bandwidth is key in world-class research and development. This translates to providing significant network capacity to research institutions in South Africa,” says Christiaan Kuun, SANReN project manager at the Meraka Institute.

Through TENET, universities and research institutions have also purchased 10 gigabytes on the Seacom cable to London and Mumbai. “We are currently paying large monthly rentals for a smaller bandwidth on SAT-3,” says Martin. “The Seacom cable is an absolute change of paradigm. We will not be renting but have instead paid upfront for use of Seacom capacity for the life of the cable, which will be 20 years. Each institution will have 50 times the bandwidth and will pay off its contribution in money saved in six years.

“It was a no-brainer,” Martin concludes.


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