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Cape Town - AlwaysOn is prepared for a sudden load on its network as the company rolls out its voice over Wi-Fi calling feature in South Africa.
"There are two networks. AlwaysOn voice infrastructure and their Wi-Fi infrastructure. With the latter, if all their users all used their service for 60mins a day AlwaysOn will not skip a beat," AlwaysOn managing director Hayden Lamberti told Fin24.
The company has launched a Wi-Fi calling offer that is network and device agnostic.
Lamberti said that the company was intent on producing a network that could scale to cover the entire country - and the subsequent load that it will generate.
"The voice infrastructure will scale far beyond what AlwaysOn is expecting in terms of traffic. AlwaysOn can control registrations to make sure this is never overtaxed while they build. This is the reason AlwaysOn will only be offering the service by registration and invitation to begin with - in effect making this a progressive launch."
Wi-Fi technologies
Despite the promise of over the top (OTT) services such as Wi-Fi calling, the technology has been slow to take off in SA.
"Naturally we tend to be a bit behind most global technology trends due to our current infrastructure challenges and geographical disbursement and as such, many rural areas still find themselves needing basic services," Michael Fletcher, sales director sub-Saharan Africa at Ruckus Wireless told Fin24.
Ruckus has demonstrated a number of Wi-Fi technologies, including secure networks, carrier grade traffic management and long range Wi-Fi switches.
Wi-Fi technology is seen as an economic driver. (Duncan Alfreds, Fin24)
Fletcher said that Wi-Fi was a key driver of internet access, particularly in rural areas or where people could not afford data services.
"In fact, South Africa's government committed to support and develop free Wi-Fi in rural areas in its election manifesto - which stands testament to this."
Part of the challenge to roll out Wi-Fi calling is payment and AlwaysOn PLANS to keep it simple in the early days of the programme.
"To start with, and to keep the process very simple, AlwaysOn is offering only one type of top-up which can be bought online: R30 which will get you 60 minutes talk time. Initially, AlwaysOn will only offer vouchers for sale online, but this will change over time," said Lamberti.
Service expansion
AlwaysOn launched its Wi-Fi calling network officially on June 8 at the company's initial network of around 2 200 hotspots around the country.
Lamberti indicated that as more users came on board, there was capacity to expand the service to ensure a better user experience.
"As with any investment in capital to deliver a service, this will need to scale over time. AlwaysOn will scale the solution out as usage grows and manage the number of users on the service to make sure that they never compromise on the quality of user experience."
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