South African IT solutions and services provider arivia.kom elected NetShield, a Proudly South African research and development house, to expand the communication network at the Eskom Campus.

The Eskom Campus was too small to accommodate the growing number of employees and so arivia.kom approached Telkom to provide a fibre link that would connect a new building with the existing local area network. But the dark fibre cabling was too expensive. Eskom needed a cost effective, easy-to-install solution.

NetShield offered a good combination of technical expertise, professional customer support, and good price performance for network connectivity and telecommunications infrastructure.

NetShield spent a day on-site to test the various geographical factors that would need to be considered prior to installation of the new laser link. The plan was to link four buildings in a star configuration, test the signal strength and monitor operation over 48 hours.

“Based on the site visit findings, we selected a multibeam transmitter configuration which offers better redundancy and is best suited to maintain constant laser connection in an adverse environment,” explains Netshield free space optical specialist Jan Bierman. He says that the particular solution was selected based on the site location.

“The Limpopo Province experiences adverse weather conditions, such as morning fog; as well as movement of the actual buildings due to ground swelling, which affects the laser links which require line of sight connection. “Should this be broken the communication comes down.

“A multibeam transmitter ensures that the link is always maintained even under adverse conditions,” he explains. “The multibeam configuration also compensates for shimmer caused by heat waves.” The NetShield laser links have proved reliable and cost-effective for arivia.kom in maintaining the communication link at the Eskom Campus, and Eskom has realised a return on investment within eight months of the lasers being installed. In addition, in the 21 months that the NetShield laser links have been in operation, the network communication downtime has been low – less than 1% a year. “Upgrading the communications link is also a simple process and all that is required is for the laser box to be moved,” concludes Bierman.