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Joburg ‘takes back control’ of broadband project

Johannesburg - City officials in Johannesburg say the municipality is taking over the build of its fibre broadband network project following the cancellation of a contract with Ericsson.

Ericsson was hired in 2011 to build the 900km Johannesburg Broadband Network (JBN) which costs R3.4bn.

The project - which was initiated in 2006 - is intended to integrate the city’s telecommunications system, lower costs of communications for residents and allow access to areas which previously had no fibre network.

The city, though, claims the project failed to meet its intended switch-on date of July 2013, which in turn led to the cancellation of Ericsson’s contract.

Subsequently, the City of Johannesburg earlier this year approved an amount of R1.1 billion to settle the termination of the contract with Ericsson.

And on Wednesday the city announced that after the the termination and transition arrangements have concluded, the municipality “will obtain full control of BWired, the operating entity created to implement the project”.

“According to the prescripts of the Municipal Finance Management Act, BWired now becomes an MOE (municipal-owned entity),” said the city.

“This exciting development accelerates the City’s ability to fast-track its Smart City programmes. The 900km of fibre-optic cables that have been rolled out provide us with back-haul infrastructure capacity to internet service providers and mobile operators, removing the entry barrier for smaller providers and capital expenditure for larger ones,” said Matebese.

“We’ve hit the ground running and are already making headway in rolling out several Smart City initiatives,” he said.

Other aspects of Johannesburg’s ‘Smart City drive’ are said to include rolling out 54 Wi-Fi hotspots on Rea Vaya buses, connecting 80 libraries to the internet by June 2016 and installing “several hundred” smart meters to help manage the city’s energy demands.

Criticism

Joburg city officials' broadband ambitions, though, have been met with sharp critique, especially when the city council approved to the R1.1bn settlement with Ericsson on January 29 2015 .

Democratic Alliance (DA) spokesperson on the Johannesburg Broadband Network Project, Rabelani Dagada, wrote in an opinion piece that the DA and other parties left a council meeting after “expressing their unhappiness” for receiving council documents on the settlement at a late stage.

“Despite of this, the African National Congress (ANC) council members who remained in the council meeting pushed through the motion,” wrote Dagada.

Dagada has also questioned whether the Johannesburg Broadband Network will be able to compete with other licensed operators in the city, make a profit and be sustainable.

“This proposed entity will not be self-sustainable and thus it will consume the financial resources that the city can use elsewhere to provide infrastructure and social services to our people,” said Dagada.

He further called for the City of Johannesburg to sell its broadband infrastructure as other private companies are already building fibre networks.

“The truth is that South Africa is now surrounded by more than three undersea broadband cables. The private companies have already sourced this broadband inland and the bulk of it is lying underneath Joburg's streets and the private sector telecommunication operators are currently connecting this network to corporate parks, offices and residences,” said Dagada.

“I will be quick to acknowledge that we have shortage of water and electricity in Joburg, but not broadband,” he added.

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