Customer
Sure South Atlantic Limited (former Cable & Wireless South Atlantic Ltd) is an internet service provider in the island of St Helena. The company is licensed by the local government to provide international public telecommunications services for more than 4000 residents of the island. Company's services include National & International Telephone, Public lnternet and Television Re-Broadcast, offering robust, high-quality communication services for both residential and business customers. Located in the South Atlantic Ocean, more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) from the nearest major landmass, Island of Saint Helena is one of the most remote places in the world.
Challenge
lslands outdated backhaul links provided connection speed of only 2Mbps which in addition were delivered using HDSL technology over copper. This was causing network bottlenecks and prevented the development of ADSL services and limited the offered speeds. The only option to upgrade the network and overcome existing shortcomings (disadvantages) was to choose between fibre or microwave.
Solution
Because of the mountainous terrain and already congested overhead pole routes, the company chose to deploy new microwave links. During the network upgrading process company mounted six 18GHz SAF Lumina links with 300Mbps capacity thus overcoming existing bandwidth constraints and decreasing network latency at a cost-effective price. Upgraded network is being used by residential and business customers, including the new airport construction site. ln foreseeable future these links will form a crucial part of the lP backhaul for St Helena's first Mobile Telephone Service as well as core ISP backbone delivering ADSL services to the airport, and two districts on the island.
SAF Tehnika was chosen because of the need for a cost-effective solution that would be quick to deploy at the same time greatly enhancing core network bandwidth. Thus far the links are working very stable and reliable. We are very satisfied with overall experience and most definitely won't hesitate to use SAF products in our future network expansion projects.
- Adam Yon Networks Manager at Sure South Atlantic Ltd
Details of the network
Equipment SAF CFIP Lumina, 6 Links
Link distance from 0.9 km to 4.24 km
Frequency 18 GHz
Capacity 300Mbps
Services Broadband/lnternet/ADSL services/l P Backbone
Antennas 30 and 99 cm
Reasons for choosing SAF products
- Radio build quality suitable for deployment even in harsh environments.
- Cost effective when compared to other alternatives
- Quick radio deployment, easy installation and configuration
- Stable and reliable devices
- Great pre-sales support and aftercare
When we started our network upgrading we already had heard about SAF Tehnika. Our sister company on Falklands were using CFIP Luminas for their network and the references were only favorable.
- Adam Yon Networks Manager at Sure South Atlantic Ltd