Fibre solution for Observatory
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Colin Theobald
Jun 27, 2017, 5:27:59 AM6/27/17
to The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
I've been trying to get a fibre provider interest in our area for nearly five years. Finally we seem to have some traction with Vumatel.
They have begun a proper feasibility study for our area, but 30% of the households need to show interest.
The other option would be Openserve (Telkom) but they still don't have most of Observatory on their 'planned' schedule (only the south side up to the end of Strubens road).
Plus most packages from Openserve are around 30% more expensive than Vumatel.
Please can I ask everyone to show their interest by filling out an extremely short (2 mins max) non-binding survey at https://vumatel.co.za/show-interest
We have hit 15% of our target in 24 hours.
However there are other suburbs being studied so we need to hit our target before them to be in front of the queue.
This has the potential to save most residents a lot of money. You won't need any form of Telkom service and a lot of people can ditch their DSTV subscriptions as well.
Please, please, please show your interest on their website.
Thank you.
Colin
Piers
Jun 27, 2017, 8:34:23 AM6/27/17
to The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Hi Colin
Thanks, we've also been looking but I got a similar response from Cybersmart last year – they even sent a me a brochure to hand out to neighbours to convince them to sign-up too.
Just signed onto Vumatel, now at 22% with 612 more applications needed.
Piers
Thanks, we've also been looking but I got a similar response from Cybersmart last year – they even sent a me a brochure to hand out to neighbours to convince them to sign-up too.
Just signed onto Vumatel, now at 22% with 612 more applications needed.
Piers
Colin Theobald
Jun 27, 2017, 8:55:55 AM6/27/17
to The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Cybersmart (Lightspeed) will never roll out fibre to free-standing houses in Obs. They only do apartment blocks and business fibre. They say they do (and put the whole of Cape Town in their coverage map as 'available') which leads us to waste plenty of our time trying to get people to sign up. Meanwhile, when you look at their actual active connections they have almost no free-standing house installations anywhere.
The reason this initiative of Vumatel is different is that we have been allocated an actual target to reach on their system. This is a new development. Previously, you could 'show your interest' and it would do nothing. Also, Vumatel marketers have started putting fliers in everyone's postboxes in Obs.
Thanks for signing up:-) Lets make this happen!
edwin angless
Jun 27, 2017, 9:55:34 AM6/27/17
to Colin Theobald, The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Mweb sent me a mail recently to say they are also introducing fibre to Obs as soon as the cables which are currently being laid are active
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Colin Theobald
Jun 27, 2017, 10:21:02 AM6/27/17
to The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch, colint...@gmail.com
Yes I spoke to Mweb about that. The reason you got that email is because Openserve have one small part of Obs on their 'planned' coverage. It only appears to cover Strubens road from Durban road to just past Willow road (see http://www.openserve.co.za/open/fibre/). This is the only part of obs that is in the 'planned' Openserve schedule and it's been there for more than a year with nothing happening.
Mweb's marketing system only 'sees' suburbs. Not the actual streets and addresses. So the sms went out to everyone in obs for which they have marketing contact details.
Trevor Hughes
Jun 27, 2017, 10:39:36 AM6/27/17
to Colin Theobald, The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
SO I live in Howe and its currently being dug up and fibre laid -
apparently by the city - a few years ago the other side of Howe was
dug up for Neotel fibre . Dark Fibre Africa were the fibre guys and
the work was done by Plessey. Look how shitthe pavements are where
they retarred.
I see they are busy trenching in Lower Main Road - who is going to
benefit and why aren't the other companies like Vumatel piggy backing
and laying fibre in the same trenches
The pavements are going to look just as crap in three years time as DFA/Plessey.
Good enough for government work anyone?
If this fibre is city or telkom, can we expect them to give a hoot
about anyone but themselves?
Trev
apparently by the city - a few years ago the other side of Howe was
dug up for Neotel fibre . Dark Fibre Africa were the fibre guys and
the work was done by Plessey. Look how shitthe pavements are where
they retarred.
I see they are busy trenching in Lower Main Road - who is going to
benefit and why aren't the other companies like Vumatel piggy backing
and laying fibre in the same trenches
The pavements are going to look just as crap in three years time as DFA/Plessey.
Good enough for government work anyone?
If this fibre is city or telkom, can we expect them to give a hoot
about anyone but themselves?
Trev
Mark Neville
Jun 27, 2017, 11:16:50 AM6/27/17
to The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
A few weeks ago I met with two representatives of Vumatel (vumatel.co.za) about their company's plans to install optic fibre cables in Observatory. They asked for a meeting in my capacity as Ward 57 committee member.
Here's what I leant:
Vuma (as they prefer to call it) is a private company that specialises in installing and operating 'FTTH' (Fibre To The Home') optic fibre networks. It has been very active in Johannesburg for few years, and has recently laid cables in the Seapoint area and the City Bowl. It has a fairly good industry reputation, and seems to know what its doing. The owners have private + debt funding (R3bn from Standard Bank I believe).
Vuma's normal approach is lay optic fibre cables in ducts under the ground, and extend this to individual homes on the request of the home owner, or an ISP acting on the owner's behalf. But in Observatory they intend to string cable between the electricity poles. A different company called 'Fibrehoods' came to an agreement with the City a few months back to do this anywhere in Cape Town where there are suitable electricity poles; Vuma recently bought Fibrehoods and so have gained the rights to do this.
Vuma's marketing approach is to try and get as many people as possible to "commit" to their service in advance; the flyers though our letterboxes are an effort to achieve this. They push for a non-binding "commitment" as an indication that sufficient members of a given community are potentially interested in their service, and then expect to "convert" at least 30% of the homes to fibre within a six month period.
If you're not clear, then the advantages of using optic fibre cables are that: (1) optic fibres have far more capacity than Telkom copper cables (though few people can afford to use the capacity they are capable of delivering). This is what most of us think of as "speed" or Megabits per second or Mbps or just "megs"; (2) optic fibre cable has much lower levels of attenuation or signal strength loss; and (3) exhibits lower latency or "time delay" in sending a bit of digital data between you and where ever. Last (4) its not subject to electromagnetic interference, or affected by the weather. And it's pretty robust and stable -- it doesn't need much in the way of maintenance unless it gets broken.
There are a few issues with the Vuma model that people should be aware of, if they are thinking about using the service. These won't matter to most people, but are worth documenting for the record.
First, Vuma says that it is an 'open access' infrastructure provider. This means that it owns the optic fibre network, and lets ISPs use it to deliver an Internet service to you at your home. Vuma charges the ISP for the use of its optic fibre, and the ISP passes this charge on to you (the end user) along with the cost of the data that you use up. But its not really an infrastructure provider; actually it's an access network provider, as it operates an active network service over the fibre in a neighbourhood, and controls the "speed" (actually capacity) of each connection. The ISP simply provides the Internet bandwidth; the ISP has no control over the access line speed or network performance. So really you're becoming a customer of Vuma. If you have a problem with your service, you will have to talk to your ISP, who will then take it up with Vuma. Which puts you two steps away from the actual network operator.
This is not a bad model; just that there is more to it than Vuma let on (at least to end users).
BTW, Vuma will be "backhauling" the traffic from Observatory to the ISPs using the City's Metro Area network between the City's switching point at Salt River Fire Station and the ISP peering point at Teraco in Newlands. Needless to say, the City charges them to do this. The trenching that is currently under way along the north side of LMR is to extend the City's optic fibre network from Salt River through to Mowbray (though this work is not directly related to the Vuma marketing push). This cable will be used to connect up the Observatory library and the Metro Police Training Academy. I have a commitment from the project manager that the contractor will re-instate the whole pavement properly; this commitment has been made to Paddy Chapel as well.
Second, stringing fibre on electricity poles is second-best to burying it under the ground. It's much more likely to be damaged, and customers will have a cable from their nearest pole to the roof of their house. More clutter in the sky above our streets. But on the other hand, we won't have the disruption of the every pavement being dug up to install the cable ducts (at least, not by Vuma. See below.)
Third, and a consequence of point two: because Vuma is stringing its cables from the electricity poles, it can't install big enough cables to run a dedicated fibre pair to every house. Underground cables have 72 or 144 fibres per cable, so each house gets a dedicated pair. But aerial cables this big are too heavy to hang from the poles. So Vuma is going to use a different architecture, called a 'PON'. This stands for 'Passive Optical Network', which is a technology that uses unpowered optic fibre splitters to share a single fibre pair with multiple customers. It works OK, but it does put an upper limit on the capacity available to each house. Elsewhere, where Vuma has installed underground cables, they have used a point-to-point dedicated pair architecture, which is much better.
As I say, these issues probably won't matter to most people, but its good to be aware of them.
I have heard that another optic fibre provider called 'Octotel' (octotel.co.za), which is associated with local ISP RSAWEB (rsaweb.co.za), is looking closely at Woodstock/Salt River/Observatory/Mowbray.
Full disclosure: I am part owner of an ISP called Vanilla (vanilla.co.za), which provides point-to-point wireless Internet connections (as well as providing service over City-owned, Octatel and LightSpeed fibre where ever this is available). Vanilla has a good customer base in Observatory.
I have not received any payment or incentive from Vumatel to promote or advertise its services.
I hope this helps you all to understand what's going on, and help individuals to make an informed decision.
If anyone has any questions about optic fibre networks, I'll do my best to answer them.
Cheers,
Mark Neville
20 Nuttall Road, Observatory
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edwin angless
Jun 27, 2017, 11:34:36 AM6/27/17
to Mark Neville, The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Mark thanks for this very detailed and honest assessment of our options But No one seems to have mentioned LTE-A which does not depend on underground nor overhead cables, nor phone lines nor LAN nor anything. And its super fast - even faster than fiberoptic
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Trevor Hughes
Jun 27, 2017, 11:37:39 AM6/27/17
to Mark Neville, The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Well talk is cheap Mark
What I can tell you from firsthand observation and interaction with
the contractors doing the trenching is that the pavement may look ok
after they have tarred it but it is going to sag as they are not
prepared to fix any of the broken drainage pipes. After the heavy rain
storm on the infamous Wednesday, just about tall the drain pipes in
Howe Street showed signs of leakage and sinkholes (mini little ones)
The contractor has just piled up the gravel again and will compact and
tar.
The leaks are still there and will causing sagging in the pavement.
Just have a look at the pavements were DFA/Plessey/Neotel ravaged then
years ago. The sagging is bad and there were no obviously visible
leaking pipes.
Good enough for government work still holds true no matter what
Councilor Chapple may guarantee or may have been gaurenteed. He is
part of government after all.
Trev
>> > obsnw+un...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group
What I can tell you from firsthand observation and interaction with
the contractors doing the trenching is that the pavement may look ok
after they have tarred it but it is going to sag as they are not
prepared to fix any of the broken drainage pipes. After the heavy rain
storm on the infamous Wednesday, just about tall the drain pipes in
Howe Street showed signs of leakage and sinkholes (mini little ones)
The contractor has just piled up the gravel again and will compact and
tar.
The leaks are still there and will causing sagging in the pavement.
Just have a look at the pavements were DFA/Plessey/Neotel ravaged then
years ago. The sagging is bad and there were no obviously visible
leaking pipes.
Good enough for government work still holds true no matter what
Councilor Chapple may guarantee or may have been gaurenteed. He is
part of government after all.
Trev
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Graham Porter
Jun 27, 2017, 11:38:54 AM6/27/17
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Excellent explanation
Mark, thank you!
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Patrick Chapple
Jun 28, 2017, 12:18:07 AM6/28/17
to Trevor Hughes, Mark Neville, The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Talk is cheap Trevor. Vuma use overhead lines...
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Barbara Langridge
Jun 28, 2017, 2:20:00 AM6/28/17
to Patrick Chapple, Trevor Hughes, Mark Neville, The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Thanks Mark Neville for taking the trouble to write such a detailed explanation.
For most "consumers" the entire subject of services of internet, fibre, data, megabytes, bandwidth is all unchartered and little understood.
I think VUMA will do an amazing job, I have seen the services they supplied to Gardens and Tamberskoof. Obviously there was some distruption, but unless we get decent fibre to OBS we will be left behind.
I have been waiting 6 weeks for Telkom to service AHEM ART COLLECTIVE. I need the service so we can take advantage of online payments and offer our customers WIFI. These are critical basics for any new business.
As a result of not having these services, the business become exposed to a SNAPSCAN scam, and most of our takings were removed from June through diversion of funds.
So roll on VUMA, I am in. Overhead, underhead, anything, I completed the online "confirm interest form".
Well done to all who are involved in this project.
Regards
Barbara Langridge
For most "consumers" the entire subject of services of internet, fibre, data, megabytes, bandwidth is all unchartered and little understood.
I think VUMA will do an amazing job, I have seen the services they supplied to Gardens and Tamberskoof. Obviously there was some distruption, but unless we get decent fibre to OBS we will be left behind.
I have been waiting 6 weeks for Telkom to service AHEM ART COLLECTIVE. I need the service so we can take advantage of online payments and offer our customers WIFI. These are critical basics for any new business.
As a result of not having these services, the business become exposed to a SNAPSCAN scam, and most of our takings were removed from June through diversion of funds.
So roll on VUMA, I am in. Overhead, underhead, anything, I completed the online "confirm interest form".
Well done to all who are involved in this project.
Regards
Barbara Langridge
Mark Neville
Jun 28, 2017, 3:59:27 AM6/28/17
to The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Edwin,
You make a good point. The whole range of LTE technologies hold much promise. An LTE service is a wireless method of connecting a device to a network. It can be used to connect a mobile / hand-held device (like a cell phone) or a fixed wireless transceiver in your home or business (which can then be connected to a Wi-Fi access point). Broadband speeds are possible.
A few issues to consider:
1. Any mast that has LTE transmission equipment mounted on it must still be connected to a fibre network for backhaul.
2. LTE uses electromagnetic frequencies, and so can still be susceptible to interference. Latency can also be an issue. Optic fibre is not susceptible to this.
3. LTE can potentially carry a lot of data quickly (more than 3G) because it generally uses shorter wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. This means that the range of each mast or high site is limited. Consequently the area covered by each mast is small (in other words, LTE has a small "cell size"). And as a consequence of this, a larger number of cells is needed to blanket an area like Observatory. Which means that locations must be found for several masts.
4. A current proposal to erect a new multi-tenant mast in Observatory for exactly this purpose has been the subject of objections. Unfounded in my view, but anyway ...
5. LTE spectrum is a scarce resource. As a consequence, the right to use it is regulated. ICASA (the local regulatory body) has not been able (yet) to come up with a method of allocating LTE spectrum that satisfies all stakeholders (including, no doubt, the Guptas). Hence at the moment, roll-out of the more advanced (faster) forms of LTE is delayed.
6. Because LTE spectrum is scare and regulated, operators must pay a high price in license fees to use it. These are passed on to the end user, so ultimately the price remains relatively high. The use of optic fibre is not regulated or licensed in the same way.
7. The capacity of optic fibre is determined by the capabilities of the equipment that is connected by it, not the medium itself. The capacity of optic fibre cables is potentially (almost) limitless for all practical purposes.
For these reasons, both LTE and optic fibre have a role to play. I would not say that one or the other obviates the need for the other.
Hope this is of value.
Mark
20 Nuttall Road, Observatory
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edwin angless
Jun 28, 2017, 4:14:23 AM6/28/17
to Mark Neville, The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Wow Mark. Your depth of knowledge is phenomenal. And absolutely fascinating. Might I just add that I’ve had LTE-A for just over a year now (I’m below the railway line near the swimming pool) and have never had any outages or faults in that time. And it really is SUPER fast.
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Colin Theobald
Jun 28, 2017, 4:49:38 AM6/28/17
to The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch, ma...@neville.za.net
Thank you so much for your detailed responses Mark. Hugely appreciated.
The obvious advantage of overhead fibre is that it will be much faster (and cheaper) to implement than trenching. However, the capacity limitation of the PON network you mention is concerning. But I suppose as long as they can offer up to 100Mb speeds then 99.9% of users will be satisfied.
While I would prefer a provider like Octotel to put in a full fibre pair to every house I doubt that would happen within the next year or two. I see University/Walmer Estate is on their 'planned' schedule, but what I've learned after watching all the fibre providers coverage maps over the years is that 'planned' takes ages, and we're not even on 'planned'.
Are you sceptical of their being able to offer 100Mb on this PON network?
I see a number of users mention LTE-A as a solution but the current range of products on this technology have data limits that are too far too restrictive. My household often hits 200GB in a month and this would be very expensive on LTE-A. That is before we start talking about how the latency problems on LTE limits what we are able to with it. So I’m afraid it’s either ADSL or Fibre for us.
We’re now on 28% of the target reached! Let’s try keep the momentum going!
Mark Neville
Jun 28, 2017, 5:23:23 AM6/28/17
to The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Hi Colin,
You ask about the potential capacity limitations of a PON. As you can see at, for example http://www.sopto.com/blog/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-pon-technology/ "... they have less range than an active optical network, meaning subscribers must be geographically closer to the central source of the data. PON also make it difficult to isolate a failure when they occur. On the other hand, because the bandwidth in a PON is not dedicated to individual subscribers, data transmission speed may slow down during peak usage times in an effect known as latency. Latency quickly degrades services such as audio and video, which need a smooth rate to maintain quality."
So a lot will depend on the number of houses that Vumatel gets to share each link (PONs can support up to 32 pre fibre pair). You should ask them! I hear that they will be having a street stall to advertise their project in Observatory this weekend. If they use the GPON ("Gigabit Passive Optical Network") standard, the impact on each user should be lessened to the point where it should not affect data streaming.
Hope this helps.
Mark
20 Nuttall Road, Observatory
Colin Theobald
Jun 28, 2017, 6:02:47 AM6/28/17
to The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch, ma...@neville.za.net
Thanks Mark that does indeed help.
Looking forward to harassing them at their street stall this weekend.
Piers
Sep 27, 2017, 4:30:31 PM9/27/17
to The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Just as an FYI i'm sharing my experience with Vumatel so far.
I logged an 'express your interest' on their website and co-incidentally they had door-to-door people visiting our street a couple of weeks after the village meeting. They were clearly guns for hire but polite, knowledgeable and what you'd expect. I mentioned I'd like to use Mweb and they said "sure, no problem".
I was browing the offers on their site and I noticed there was no Mweb option so I sent them a mail. Long story short, I sent 5 mails to which I had one reply "we'll be in touch..." and still nada.
Perhaps they're overwhelmed by the interest but I'm not buying it. If this is an indicator of the level of their service then, thanks, but i'll stick with my 10MBPS copper line or wait for someone who has capacity to deliver the level of service they are promising.
I logged an 'express your interest' on their website and co-incidentally they had door-to-door people visiting our street a couple of weeks after the village meeting. They were clearly guns for hire but polite, knowledgeable and what you'd expect. I mentioned I'd like to use Mweb and they said "sure, no problem".
I was browing the offers on their site and I noticed there was no Mweb option so I sent them a mail. Long story short, I sent 5 mails to which I had one reply "we'll be in touch..." and still nada.
Perhaps they're overwhelmed by the interest but I'm not buying it. If this is an indicator of the level of their service then, thanks, but i'll stick with my 10MBPS copper line or wait for someone who has capacity to deliver the level of service they are promising.
Simon Rhodes
Sep 27, 2017, 4:41:59 PM9/27/17
to Piers, The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
I have to concur, I received a link saying activate your account here which led to 'this page cannot be found'. I had the same enquiry regarding mweb and have received no further correspondence! For the moment also sticking to the 10meg which fades to 2 at best when the wind blows and it gets entangled in neighboring tree branches!
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
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Annemarie du Bois
Sep 28, 2017, 2:04:14 AM9/28/17
to Simon Rhodes, Piers, The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
What I do not like about their method of installation, is the fact that cables are positioned from the electricity poles/lines to your property . I also have an apartment in Mowbray and it would have meant 3 block having a line from the electric pole and then from flat to flat, mid-air. Reminds me of Hong Kong or a township where you see lines from building to building in their mass. Not good. I would hate to think all neighbours in our street having lines hanging mid-air to their properties plus a further cable running down your building also . Might be concealed to some degree on the building but def. not mid-air from electric poles to properties.
I went onto the MWEB optic fibre solution website last night and I think they have possibly a much better option . will phone them and see how they connect one. . Same price as Vumatel. Once off payment for installation cost of R1780 plus they supply you with a R500 fibre router. See : https://www.mweb.co.za/internet-connection/fibre/fibre-to-the-home?PPC=Y&PPC=Y&gclsrc=aw.ds
From: ob...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ob...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Simon Rhodes
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 10:42 PM
To: Piers
Cc: The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
Gwen Dereymaeker
Sep 28, 2017, 8:46:33 AM9/28/17
to The Observatory Neighbourhood Watch
We're all signed up with Vumatel and Mweb as ISP. Very easy and straightforward, and we got a great deal where Mweb covers the cost of installation and connection fee - more than R2000 saved! To me the objections on the hanging cables appears to be a bit of a NIMBY attitude but I may be wrong... We already have an electricity and telephone cable reaching our house, an additional one won't be a train smash.
I very much look forward to fibre! Vumatel will also be ready much sooner than Octotel.
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