DIPOL Weekly Review – TV and SAT TV, CCTV, WLAN

Fiber optics, satellite, drone? Does Africa have a chance for 21st century Internet access?

In this November, Paratus Zambia, a network service provider with its own network infrastructure across several African countries, announced that together with Meta, a U.S.-based technology conglomerate that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, among others, they will build a network of 900 km of fiber optic cables across 10 cities in Zambia by the end of 2023.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, Internet connectivity is developing in two ways. On the one hand, in the most developed countries, fiber has already reached the majority of connected households. This is the case in Kenya, for example, where 53 percent of connections are based on fiber-optic access techniques and only 5 percent on xDSL technology. Wireless access techniques also have a large share here. In South Africa, the distribution looks a bit worse – the 33% of the "permanently connected" use fiber optics and 4% xDSL. On the other hand, in most countries, xDSL is still the main type of connection that brings the Internet to African homes. In 2022, in Burundi, xDSL accounts for 94% of connections, and only 1% for fiber. In Congo, it's 35% xDSL versus 18% fiber subscribers. It is estimated that by 2027, most countries where xDSL dominates will have migrated between xDSL and fiber subscribers.

Network operators are proceeding in a similar fashion across Africa: the first fiber installations are being carried out in the largest cities, usually in the capitals, followed by more smaller ones. This strategy is explained by stronger market potential in these areas, but also by ease of installation and lower cost. For example, after launching a fiber service CanalBox in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in June 2021, Vivendi Africa Group (GVA) expanded its network to the country's second city, Bobo-Dioulasso, in May 2022. The same model was employed in Gabon, where GVA launched its fiber offering in Libreville in October 2017, followed by Port-Gentil in June 2022.

The next step will be to extend these services to rural areas, where most of Africa's population (58%) lives, which are still very poorly connected to broadband. When will this happen? Will it happen at all? No one knows. In Europe, the problem has been solved by EU directives mandating coverage of so-called "white spots," i.e. areas without high-speed Internet access within a certain period of time. EU funds for the implementation of these provisions have been flowing to member states for several years now. There is no illusion that someone in Africa will do this 100% charitably. What may work in Africa's favor, however, is the fact that fiber optic infrastructure is getting cheaper every year, and the fact that despite the need for extensive analyses on the profitability of a given investment, most operators see building their own fiber infrastructure as a huge opportunity in the broader horizon. The smaller ones are even joining forces to be able to compete with the largest operators in the race to build fiber lines. Still, it is not on a scale that would allow one to talk about a universally accessible Internet in almost all of Africa.

To confront the lack of infrastructure and high installation costs, some companies are going va banque. An example of this is StarLink, founded by South African-born Elon Musk, a company that operates a network of satellites to deliver Internet in areas where it is impossible or uneconomical to deliver Internet by other means. StarLink began commercial operations by offering a transceiver kit for $99 (in the US, the price is $599). While the amount remains very high for the vast majority of the country's population, it shows the willingness and desire of global giants to develop Africa in terms of high-speed Internet access. This is not where the company intends to stop, as it has secured a license in South Africa in 2021 and Mozambique and Malawi in 2022.

Starlink is not the first company to try new methods of connecting more Africans to the Internet. Loon, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's parent company, abandoned a project in 2021 of stratospheric balloons hovering over Kenya to provide 4G to the population. The idea is now being taken up by World Mobile, which has obtained a license in Zanzibar and Tanzania and expects to get one in Kenya as well. There was also the Aquila project of the Meta company mentioned in the first paragraph involving the use of drones operating at high altitudes, but this was shut down in 2018.

Fiber optics, however, seems to be the most viable, non-experimental medium. With the right willingness and management, the economic prospects offered by publicly accessible connectivity will undoubtedly favor initiatives by operators well aware of the hidden potential in the region.

Antenna for GPRS amplification.

GPRS is a technique associated with packet-switched data transmission over GSM networks. The maximum download speed is 115 kbps, but in practice the speed reaches 30-80 kbps. GPRS allows the transmission of telemetry data to the Internet.

GSM network as well as GPRS transmission is often used for notifications/readings from meters and communication modules of control panels. When the operator's base station is far away from such a device, there may be problems with adequate signal strength. In order to improve it, a suitable antenna should be connected. Below is the most popular antenna in Dipol's offer for this purpose.

What kind of knife for mechanical splices?

Mechanical splices for connecting optical fibers are still a popular solution used by installers who occasionally perform installations based on fiber optic cabling. A common question that arises when first shopping for mechanical splicing accessories is that of choosing a fiber cutter.

The fiber cutter, regardless of the version, is the most expensive part of the kit, so it is worth paying a little more attention to it. There are 2 types of knives to choose from:

The L5882 knife is used when welding fibers with a fiber optic splicer. It guarantees very good quality and repeatability of cutting. Despite this, the use of this type of knife for mechanical splicing does not seem to be a good idea. In a situation where the guillotine is used with a welding machine, the installer gets feedback that the knife is cutting badly as a result of the blade becoming unsettled or blunted. It is also possible that the blade does not cut at all. It is then necessary to properly adjust the blade. However, this is not possible without having a splicer and verifying the effects of adjusting the setting on the splicer's screen. Therefore, using the L5882 knife for mechanical welding runs the risk of unknowingly making poor cuts that can have a real impact on the quality of the splice.

In contrast, the L5801 knife does not require any adjustment. Its initial cut quality is inferior to that of the L5882, but acceptable when performing mechanical splicing. The cuts are not so repeatable, some of them could be rejected by a thermal splicer, but in the vast majority of cases the quality of the cut is quite sufficient to perform a mechanical splice.

SMATV/SAT system in a multi-family building.

Multiswitch systems responsible for supplying DVB-T2 digital terrestrial TV and DVB-S/S2 satellite TV signals to apartments are an excellent complement, as well as an alternative to cable network systems in multi-family residential buildings. The use of fiber optics in them can be associated with many advantages, both technically and financially. If typical fiber-optic cables are chosen, the cost of building a multiswitch bus can be several or more times lower than that of a copper bus. This is due both to the fact that the unit price of fiber-optic cable can be lower than that of good-grade coaxial cable, and to the fact that fewer cables need to be laid.

Hikvision IP surveillance system based on DS-9632NI-I8 DVR.

The diagram below shows a surveillance system based on the state-of-the-art 32-channel Hikvision DS-9632NI-I8 K22362 IP DVR and AcuSense cameras. The DVR has 8 SATA ports, each of which can support hard drives of up to 10 TB capacity. Thanks to RAID (0, 1, 5, 6, 10) support the system can be protected against the loss of recordings in the event of disk failure. The system uses AcuSense cameras from the EasyIP 4.0 series, DS-2CD2046G2-I K03141 with 4 Mpix resolution and DS-2CD2086G2-I K03185 with 8 MP resolution. The cameras have lenses with a fixed focal length of 2.8 mm and a wide viewing angle. AcuSense technology allows for human/vehicle object filtering and thus reducing false alarms. The cameras are connected to a 24-port Ultipower 2224af PoE switch with a total power budget of 370 W.

TERRA channel amplifiers - when to use? One of the main problems in building and launching SMATV systems is large disparity in signal levels between individual multiplexes. While in smaller DVB-T2 systems this is of little importance (due to small distances from the antenna to the receiver and a small number of outlets), in the case of more extensive systems such differences are crucial for the proper operation of the entire system. The key reason for the different signal levels for individual DVB-T2 multiplexes is the non-uniform attenuation of frequencies in different environments, e.g. air, coaxial cable, etc. ...>>>more