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Pretoria - Telkom has won the tender against Seacom to supply the international community with broadband coverage of the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
This follows after they were selected as the national provider for the same service by Fifa.
"Fifa gave Telkom the opportunity to do the international transmission and we made the offer with competitive prices," said Telkom CEO Reuben September at the launch of the rebranded Telkom Lukasrand Tower in Pretoria on Wednesday night.
The tower boasts a 50 tonne, eight-storey high soccer ball which has gone down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest steel and fibreglass soccer ball in the world.
Over the past four months the soccer ball was assembled by hand by a team of engineers. The tower was officially lit on Wednesday night as a symbol of Telkom's readiness to provide 99.99% network availability during the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
"The Lukasrand Tower now not only dominates the Tshwane skyline, it graces it," said September.
Telkom will be using its existing cable infrastructure to deliver on its promises to Fifa and the international community.
Industry sources speculate Telkom presented a more favourable proposal than Seacom based on its established infrastructure and intra-African network.
Telkom has already laid 128 000km of fibre-optic cable for the event - enough to wrap around the world three times.
The 2010 Fifa World Cup will be the first time that the matches will be broadcast exclusively in high-definition.
- Fin24.com
