Building the TENET National Network
Many of the most important TENET client sites do not appear on the official SANReN site list, which
means that they will almost certainly not be included in the SANReN national network in the near
future. However, SANReN has agreed to allow TENET to connect any of its sites to the SANReN network
and to allow these sites’ traffic to flow unimpeded over the entire national SANReN network.
TENET and its clients are therefore free to make their own arrangements to connect their sites to the
network, including building and owning dark fibre cables, which would be managed by TENET under its
new ECNS license. All that is required is for TENET to find the funding to buy equipment, construct new
fibre routes and buy long term IRU’s for the use of dark fibre and other services. TENET will in effect be
building its own national network, even though it will largely be an access network, rather than a core
transmission network, as is the case with the SANReN network.
There are several client sites which are anxious to enjoy the full privileges of the SANReN backbone
network, especially as it will be used to deliver the Seacom international traffic from July 2009. This
document suggests some ways in which these sites may be connected to the SANReN backbone
network. It contains no pricing estimates, as a more detailed design will have to be done in consultation
with the network providers, especially Infraco, the SANReN backbone provider.
This document will be followed by a more detailed report specifying the options with detailed costing
estimates for equipment, fibre and services IRUs.
Figure 1: The SANReN national backbone network
Bisho
The Bisho campus of the University of Fort Hare is only 6.5 km from the King William’s Town station.
Therefore, if the SANReN national backbone is provided by Infraco and the SANReN 10 Gbps circuit is
regenerated at King William’s Town, TENET may request that the circuit be dropped into a local router at
the node, since Infraco will have to provide back-to-back transponders for the circuit regeneration
anyway.
TENET may then have a dedicated optic fibre cable constructed between the Bisho campus and the
Infraco PoP at the station. The resulting dark fibre link may then be lit at high speed (i.e. 1 Gbps) by
placing a small GigabitEthernet switch at the campus (Figure 2).
Infraco PoP KWT
Infraco OADM
Line to Grahamstown
Line to East London
Back-to-back
transponder cards
10 GbE connections
(East & West)
TENET local 10 Gbps router
1 GbE dark fibre connection
TENET local 1 Gbps switch
UFH 1 Gbps LAN switch
UFH Bisho
Figure 2: Connecting a remote site to the national backbone
TENET will therefore have to provide the following in order to connect the Bisho campus to the national
backbone:
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



1x 10 Gbps router
2x 10 GbE router ports
1x 1GbE router port
1x 1 Gbps switch
2x 1GbE switch ports
Dark fibre connection between UFH data room and Infraco PoP (6.5 km)
In the event that the national backbone is not regenerated in King William’s Town the only way to
connect the UFH campus to the backbone would be to purchase a high speed leased line from one of
commercial providers (Telkom or Neotel). This link would have to run between the UFH data room and
the nearest Infraco PoP where the SANReN circuit is regenerated (probably East London).
Figure 3: Connecting UFH Bisho to Infraco PoP
Alice
The Alice campus of UFH is 60 km from King William’s Town. Constructing a dedicated fibre route
between the two towns just for the use of the UFH campus will most likely be prohibitively expensive. In
the unlikely event that one of the providers has a spare fibre pair on this route that they are willing to
relinquish, TENET could negotiate the purchase of a long-term IRU for the fibre pair. Then the Alice
campus may be connected in the same way as the Bisho campus.
The remoteness of Alice will most likely force TENET to accept the standard leased-line method of
connecting the UFH campus. In such a case a leased line IRU between the campus and the nearest
national backbone node will have to be purchased from one of the providers. This will most likely be
either King William’s Town or East London.
Butterworth
As with the case in King William’s Town, Butterworth is most likely a regenerator site on the Infraco
national network. If this is the case then the WSU campus in Butterworth may be connected to the
backbone in exactly the same way as Bisho (Figure 2).
TENET would have to provide the same equipment as in the Bisho case, as well as a dedicated dark fibre
link between the WSU campus and the Infraco PoP at the railway station (1 km).
If the SANReN circuit is not regenerated in Butterworth, a leased line IRU will have to be purchased to
connect the WSU campus to the nearest backbone node (most likely East London).
Figure 4: Connecting WSU Butterworth to the backbone
Bloemfontein
The main campus of CUT in Bloemfontein is very close to the railway station where the Infraco national
network passes through. As this is a major city, the national network will definitely have an add/drop
and regenerator node here. Therefore, CUT may once again be easily connected to the Infraco PoP via a
dark fibre link between the PoP and the campus (1.4 km).
It may be possible for TENET to obtain a dark fibre pair from one of the providers on this route, rather
than having to construct a dedicated route. Such an IRU should be considerably less expensive than a
new route. The providers should be consulted when designing this route, as an opportunity for the cobuilding of infrastructure may exist.
Figure 5: Connecting CUT to the backbone
East London
There are three important TENET campuses in East London: the EL campus of UFH, as well as the
Chiselhurst and College St campuses of WSU. East London is also a major city and will definitely have a
large node on the Infraco national network. This node is most likely at the railway station, which is not
far from the UFH camps.
Tenet could have a dedicated fibre cable constructed linking all three campuses to the national node
(Figure 6). The campuses could then be daisy-chained on a 1 Gbps (or even a 10 Gbps) Ethernet link
running from the furthest campus (Chiselhurst) all the way to the station. The following equipment
would be required:
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



1x 10 Gbps router
2x 10 GbE router ports
1x 1GbE router port
3x 1 Gbps switch
5x 1GbE switch ports
Dark fibre connection from Chiselhurst to College St to UFH to the station (6.5 km)
Once again the opportunity for co-investment with one of the providers (including Dark Fibre Africa)
should be considered. It may even be possible to purchase a fibre IRU on an existing network.
Figure 6: Connecting sites in East London
Mthatha
The TENET site in Mthatha is the main campus of WSU. This campus is just outside the town and may
easily be connected with a dedicated dark fibre cable to the Infraco PoP at the railway station. Assuming
that Infraco regenerates the SANReN circuit here, the traffic to WSU may be dropped from the national
backbone circuit in the same way as in Bisho, including a dark fibre cable of 4.2 km (Figure 2).
Figure 7: Connecting WSU in Mthatha
Witbank
The Infraco national route between Gauteng and Kwazulu-Natal runs through Witbank, which is also
home to an important satellite campus of TUT. TENET can construct a 4.5 km fibre cable either by itself
or by co-build with DFA or another provider. The same equipment list as in Bisho would be needed.
Garankuwa
There are two TENET customer sites in Garankuwa: a satellite campus of TUT and the Medunsa campus
of UL. Both campuses are quite a long way (19 km) from the closest potential SANReN site in Pretoria
(UP Onderstepoort), making the construction of a dedicated fibre cable from Medunsa to the SANReN
network difficult and expensive.
A far better solution would be to get permission from TUT to piggy-back on their existing microwave
network. All TENET would need to do is construct a short (2 km) optic fibre cable between the two
campuses. With a GbE or FastEthernet switch at either end of the cable TENET could service the
Medunsa site with as much bandwidth as TUT could spare on the microwave link between the main and
Garankuwa campuses. This may be as high as 100 Mbps.
TENET would then provision a VLAN on the 10 Gbps wavelength between the CSIR core node and TUT
main, which would be switched on the TUT LAN (via the microwave link) to drop at the Garankuwa site.
From there it would be transported on the dedicated dark fibre to the Medunsa data room, where it
would be connected straight into the Medunsa LAN (Figure 8).
CSIR Main
Switch
DWDM
TUT Main
Switch
TUT LAN Switch
TUT Garankuwa
Switch
TUT LAN Switch TENET Local Switch
UL Medunsa
Switch
TENET Local Switch
DWDM
TUT Microwave link
Dark fibre link
SANReN Core
Router (7609)
Medunsa
LAN Switch
VLAN trunk
between CSIR
and Medunsa
Figure 8: Connecting Medunsa to the network
TENET would only need to provide the following:
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2x 100 Mbps switches
4x 100 Mbps electrical ports
2x 100 Mbps optical ports
2 km dark fibre cable link
Florida
The Unisa satellite campus at Florida in Johannesburg can easily be connected to the SANReN local ring
if a dark fibre connection could be established between the Unisa campus and the Western node on
Johannesburg fibre ring (UJ Kingsway).
Figure 9: Connecting Unisa Florida
It should be possible to purchase an IRU for a fibre pair from Neotel or DFA as both sites are along a
major road artery (Ontdekkers), and it is very likely that existing infrastructure may be obtained.
TENET would only have to supply a small switch (1 Gbps) at Unisa, as well as a standard 4924 switch at
UJ Kingsway. The UJK switch would then be introduced as a new node on the SANReN grey ring and the
Unisa campus would be directly connected to it. The following list of equipment would be required:
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
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1x 10 Gbps switch
2x 10 Gbps ports
1x 1Gbps switch
2x 1 Gbps ports
One dark fibre pair of 12.5 km would also need to be purchased on an IRU basis.
Depending on the traffic required it would be possible to upgrade the connection to Unisa Florida to 10
Gbps by provisioning a new lambda on the DWDM ring and dropping it into the new 10 Gbps switch. By
upgrading the switch at Unisa to 10 Gbps, the dark fibre connection could then carry a full wavelength’s
traffic. At the Reefhead a new Reefhead-CSIR-Unisa Main wavelength could be commissioned to
establish an uncontended 10 Gbps service between Unisa Main and Unisa Florida.
Vanderbijlpark
Two important TENET sites exist in the town of Vanderbijlpark. These two campuses of NWU and VUT
may be interconnected by a short (4 km) dedicated dark fibre cable.
Figure 10: Connecting NWU and VUT
The only problem is that Vanderbijlpark does not have an Infraco node, which means that there is no
easy way of dropping the SANReN national 10 Gbps and adding the traffic to these two sites. Therefore,
a leased-line connection must be established between the large campus (VUT) and a SANReN core node
(either Reefhead or CSIR Main). The nearest SANReN node is Johannesburg, almost 150 km away, but it
may be possible to commission a leased line between VUT and the nearest Infraco node that the
SANReN backbone passes through.
So, one may reasonably expect the closest Infraco repeater node to be in the Infraco/Neotel building in
Vereeniging. Therefore, Neotel should be approached to provide a high-speed link (in the order of
500 Mbps) between the VUT data room and the Infraco PoP. If this is possible, then the SANReN
backbone circuit may once again be dropped into a local TENET router to connect the VUT/NWU.
Assuming handoff at 1Gbps Ethernet, TENET would only have to provide a 1 Gbps switch with one
optical and one electrical port at both client sites, as well as the usual 10 Gbps router with three ports at
the Infraco node. To summarise:
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
1x 10 Gbps router
2x 10 GbE router ports (optical)
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


1x 1GbE router port (electrical)
2x 1 Gbps switch
3x 1GbE switch ports (electrical)
2x 1GbE switch ports (optical)
Infraco PoP Vereeniging
Infraco OADM
Line to Bloemfontein
10 GbE connections
(East & West)
Back-to-back
transponder cards
TENET local
10 Gbps router
Telkom
500 Mbps leased line on GbE
Telkom
TENET
Local
Switch
TENET
Local
Switch
NWU LAN Switch
NWU
VUT LAN Switch
VUT
1 GbE dark fibre connection
Figure 11: Connecting VUT and NWU to the backbone
Mmabatho
The Mmabatho campus of NWU in Mafikeng is almost 200 km from the nearest SANReN node, which
makes any fibre solution impractical. The only option is to commission a leased line between the
campus and a SANReN node. As the nearest node is the NWU main campus in Potchefstroom, it makes
sense to build the leased line between the Mmabatho campus and the Potchefstroom campus, rather
than another arbitrary SANReN node, which would necessitate the backhauling of the site’s traffic to the
main campus.