 Co-location - is South Africa getting the picture? by Hans van de Groenendaal, EngineerIT
The recent landing of the West African Cable System (WACS) at Yzerfontein on the Cape West Coast has brought the issue of co-locating and sharing of infrastructure in the telecomunications environment strongly to the fore... ( more) |
 Debate presenters: Fracking in the Karoo - for and against Presenters at public debate announced - Chairman: Dr. Rod Crompton, NERSA; For fracking: Prof. Philip Lloyd; Ivo Vegter; Against fracking: Dr. Anthony Turton; Dr. Chris Hartnady. Join the debate, register here!... ( more) |
 In conversation with Frank van Rees, HPHans van de Groenendaal in conversation with Frank van Rees, HP
When joining to head a company in the middle of an economic downturn, a constrained market and other management changes, the challenges could be daunting... ( more) |
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CMMI adoption in South Africa
by Prof. Barry Dwolatzky, JCSE at Wits University
When one thinks about the challenges faced by South Africa's IT sector as it struggles to define its role within the hugely competitive international IT industry, making progress in small achievable steps certainly makes sense... ( more) |
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CMMI - not a silver bullet, but it works
by Hans van de Groenendaal, EngineerIT
Software companies in SA are struggling to compete globally in terms of cheaper services, but where they can compete is on quality. CMMI has become a widely accepted model... ( more) |
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Powerline communications in spotlight again
by Hans van de Groenendaal, EngineerIT
There has recently been debate at several of the SA Bureau of Standards (SABS) technical committees concerned with standards in the communications and power distribution fields... ( more) |
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WACS to provide increased international connectivity
by Hans van de Groenendaal, EngineerIT
The West African Cable System (WACS) landed at Yzerfontein, a small village on the Cape West coast on 19 April 2011, thereby doubling Africa's broadband capacity... ( more) |
Best practices for defragmenting thin provisioned storage
Information from Diskeeper Corporation, United Kingdom
When thin provisioning is implemented on a shared virtualisation host file system, it creates a high degree of probability of thin/dynamic virtual disk files themselves becoming fragmented, adding additional I/O overhead... ( more |
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Satellite vs. optic fibre - is there a case?
by Hans van de Groenendaal, EngineerIT
With the media hype about the newly landed West African Cable System offering 5,12 Tbps capacity from early next year, satellites have been pushed into the background with some even doubting that there is a future for these "birds in the sky"...
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Enterprise VoiP - how to engineer for the real world
by Stephen Davies, Connection Telecom
South African companies have, for many years, shied away from voice over IP (VoiP) and/or cloud-based telephony solutions because of our legacy of slow and expensive bandwidth... ( more) |
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Profibus cable installation vs. reliability
by Donovan Dercksen, Lapp Kabel
Profibus is a diverse, flexible, and accommodating industrial fieldbus network, and forms the backbone for communication on the plant level. However, the reliability and robustness of Profibus is often tested by simple wiring faults... ( more) |
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Network infrastructure risks in extreme environments
Information from Industrial Automation & Control
A robust industrial Ethernet infrastructure is essential to long-term performance and reliability. Industrial communications and control networks are expected to operate consistently and reliably under various types of extreme conditions... ( more) |
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Making EMI compliance measurements
Information from Agilent Technologies
Electrical or electronic equipment using the public power grid or that has potential for electromagnetic emissions must pass EMC requirements. Agilent Technologies has produced a detailed application note on the subject... ( more) |
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Laser displacement sensor technology
by Dr. Jie Lin, Panasonic Electric Works, Germany
To meet continuously rising demand for quality assurance, integrated measurement technology has become indispensable for industrial manufacturing. Laser measurement technology has increasingly profited from this trend... ( more) |
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Silicon improvements for Mosfet
by O. Hassen and V. Viswanathan, International Rectifier, USA
The authors explain how improvements in silicon performance are being combined with optimal package technology to improve the efficiency, reliability and thermal performance of next-generation power Mosfets... ( more) |
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Futuristic RF and photonic micro-systems
by Prof. Lukas Snyman, Tshwane University of Technology
Various researchers have highlighted the role of small-dimension optical communication and micro-systems. The realisation of sufficiently efficient light-emitters has, however, been a major technological challenge... ( more) |
| Telecoms developments in Africa
compiled by Matthew White, Iona Press Services
- Russia to finance Angola's first national satellite
- Uganda orders shut-down of Facebook, Twitter for 24 hours
- Glo-1 cable goes live in Ghana
- Habari extends internet coverage to Kilimanjaro
- Zambia's Zamtel targets 80% national coverage
- Rwanda court appoints administrator for Rwandatel
- Nigeria in top ten in world telecoms growth rate
- Zimbabwe commissions new transmission equipment
- Ethio-Telecom limits EVDO internet access... (more)
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Industry and institute news
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| Amateur radio: a case for experiential learning
When the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) published the new radio frequencies spectrum regulations for amateur radio, it was not met with enthusiasm by a section of the amateur radio community in South Africa... ( more) |
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