Estate Living September 2016 Digital Issue | Page 50

TM

to the internet
“Dark fibre”, “dirty movies”, “sewerage pipes”
– a little seedy and sordid-sounding, but all
part of Link Africa’s mission to bring us closer
to the limitless world of the Internet through
fibre optics.
Fibre optics provides the ultimate in Internet
access – the last word in speed and capacity.
With fibre now available to homes in
metropolitan areas, FTTH (fibre to the home)
is fast becoming a household term. The
opportunities that fibre connectivity create are
virtually limitless: anything can be transmitted
via fibre optics, and in the realm of the
“Internet of things” – the idea that everyday
objects should be integrated with the Internet
– we can look forward to building houses by
remote control, via fibre and 3D printers. For
the baby boomer generation this may all seem
like science fiction, but for millennials it’s just
a matter of time. As for Generation Z – they’re
simply impatient.
Link Africa lays the multi-fibre cables that bring
high-speed Internet to your home or business.
The industry has a number of players, but Link
Africa stands out for a number of reasons,
making it worth a closer look.
One of the biggest obstacles standing between
the end client and access to fibre is the cost,
80% of which comes from the civil process:
digging the trenches, physically laying the
cables and then restoring the environment.

Link Africa, however, has the patent for laying
fibre cable in existing sewerage and water
pipes. This reduces the civil work dramatically,
resulting in cost savings and far less disruption.
Although this sounds like the ideal and obvious
method, Link Africa had to fight a two-year legal
battle to be allowed to use the technology. The
City of Tshwane took the company all the way
to the Constitutional Court to keep it from
gaining access to “their” water and sewerage
systems. Link Africa’s persistence resulted in
a win for everyone, when the Constitutional
Court confirmed the original High Court
ruling that the use of the water and sewerage
system for fibre optic cables was to everyone’s
benefit − including that of the City of Tshwane:
“Fibre-optic cables are the fastest and most
effective product on the market to implement
electronic communications networks, and
provide a safe and secure system that has
practically unlimited bandwidth.” That from
our Constitutional Court, no less.
Letting Link Africa loose in the sewers has an
added benefit for municipalities, because the
first step of the process, before laying the
precious cables, is to conduct surveys of the
piping. This is done with robotic video cameras,
which produce “dirty movies” that soon reveal
any structural issues. These defects can then
be addressed by the municipalities before they
cause a breakdown in the sewerage system .