Wired for kick-off

With just over a week to go to the kick-off between Bafana Bafana and Mexico, South Africans are bubbling over with excitement. Cars across the country are literally wearing the South African flag on side mirrors, and football Friday is seeing even government officials throw out their suits and ties.

The feeling that all South Africans felt - when Sepp Blatter revealed the card that showed that SA would host the event - is back, and everyone involved is fingering their tickets in anticipation of the showcase.

When you play at international level, there is no room for mistakes, and SA is now in the spotlight on the international stage. Local technology companies have been preparing for this day since the announcement, and with only a few days left in the bag, all of them can say that SA is truly wired for kick-off.

South African ICT companies have never had a better opportunity to shine as they have today, with the sports spectacular asking for some pretty impressive technology and companies like MTN, Telkom and Dimension Data showing the world what SA can do.

THE BONES

Telkom alone has pulled together its next-generation network and thousands of kilometres of cable through the stadiums to bring the capacity needed for international news hubs to broadcast the event to the millions of people waiting to see their country win.

SA`s fixed-line operator`s job has probably been the most mundane, but definitely one of the most important. Fifa requires that networks between the stadiums, the International Broadcasting Centre (IBC) and the various broadcasters around the world don`t fail during any of the matches.

If the World Cup in Germany, in 2006, is anything to go by, that means Telkom has to make sure the network is up and running for about 73 000 hours` worth of TV coverage, working out to about 858 hours of TV for each match.

To get this right, Telkom has installed lines that run 20GBps between the stadiums and the IBC, which translates into roughly 312 500 phone-calls all at the same time. The lines link to the company`s next-generation network, which is so long it can wrap around the world more than once.

BIGGER AND BETTER

More interestingly, the 2010 World Cup will be the first to have most broadcasters bringing the service on high-definition to their countries. It is why Telkom`s pipes are expected to be larger than any other World Cup provider before.

It has also installed floating lines around the pitches to allow photographers right in the action to instantly upload images to their reporters in the media areas to send to their various publications around the world.

Telkom has already had its network test run during the Confederations Cup, held last year, where it managed to keep the 99.99% uptime required by Fifa. Telkom`s network provides the basic backbone for most of the technology used in and around the stadiums and the company says it`s confident that it is ready to go.

SPACE AGE

Telkom`s network will have the backup of state-owned signal distributor Sentech, which will provide satellite services to balance out the fibre network.

Alongside Sentech, Intelsat has also got in on the action, provisioning seven of its satellites to cover broadcasting for the event.

Partnered with Aberdeen House Sports Management, Reuters and Video Cairo Support, Intelsat will offer on-site broadcasting services for those media companies that don`t have the funds to bring their own equipment out.

The company will allow broadcasters to use a fully equipped studio, complete with HD cameras, which will be situated near the stadiums in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban.

THE GRASS IS GREENER

The stadiums themselves are being hailed as technological marvels and people from around the world are coming to see them to use them as a benchmark for international stadium development.

Dimension Data has been one of the companies involved in the technological developments in six of the 10 stadiums to be used for the World Cup. Half of these stadiums were built from scratch and others underwent some serious changes.

Greenpoint Stadium, in Cape Town, and the Nelson Mandela" rel=tag>Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium have really embraced technology from end to end. Both of the developments are employing technology innovations using a single system to automate almost everything, from watering the grass, to fire safety systems and sign writing.

The two sparkling new stadiums will use the IP network to manage ventilation, which intelligently monitors the heat of the day and changes the temperature to suit. The irrigation system also looks at the temperatures and rain levels to figure out when to turn on and off

The stadiums have all been developed to use technologies that can be used for purposes other than simply sports matches and many of them can be easily repurposed to put on a rock concert or a political rally, anything that needs seating for seriously large crowds.

International networking giant Cisco has also been part of the stadium technology dress up, and has IP and voice hardware in all the stadiums. It has also joined with international sporting broadcaster ESPN to bring its telepresence rooms to Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.

The rooms will be used by ESPN to broadcast player interviews and commentary from the two cities back to Johannesburg`s broadcasting centre, all of which will be done in high-definition. In addition to the rooms, ESPN has implemented a wired broadband pipe between the IBC, in Johannesburg, and its own broadcasting headquarters in Bristol, which can carry capacity of up to 650Mbps.

Cisco has also put screening technologies into the airports to bring match previews and interviews to tourists coming off the planes looking for updates.

READY FOR THE WORLD

The airport is where the magic will start for many soccer fans entering SA, and the first African sponsor of the Fifa World Cup, MTN, has made sure that tourists will have the best service from first contact in SA.

The company is expecting a massive flood of voice traffic on its network when fans arrive, and has beefed up its network around the airports and stadiums in preparation for the influx.

At the very least, MTN`s network will see 600 000 new customers when tourists start arriving. The company has sold that many specially packaged SIM cards through Visa to 60 countries around the world, all planning on visiting SA for 2010.

Planning on the massive number of new SIMs on the network, MTN has also implemented fibre-based coverage, which will back up its capacity around the stadiums. Not forgetting that South Africans will still need mobile coverage, the company has implemented a solution that "ring fences the stadiums", which will prevent massive traffic volumes from impacting the rest of the network.

MTN is also responsible for 20 TV sites across SA, which will screen the matches on big screen TVs in places like Ivory Park, Diepsloot, Lenasia, Soweto, Makushane in Phalaborwa, Mhluzi in Middelburg, Kathlehong, Tembisa, and Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal.

The mobile giant has also been one of the most ardent fans of the cup, pushing the 2010 message through some serious marketing. It even joined with Chinese manufacturer Huawei to bring SA a soccer ball shaped 3G modem.

MTN said it right when it said: "All told, the 2010 Fifa World Cup is going to be an event that will launch SA into the hearts and minds of the world."