Category: News

Vox has announced that effective immediately, it has decreased pricing on its 100mb and 50mb uncapped bundles.  More importantly, the company has introduced a new 200mb line speed product, that it anticipates will see more South Africans joining the fibre revolution.

Claire Williamson, product manager for FTTH at Vox says, “There was once a time when we could not imagine the line speeds available to home users, at such competitive rates.  We are excited to launch a 200mb offering starting from R1 299  per month.”

The new bundles are available to new subscribers and existing subscribers can upgrade with ease.  Our existing customers enjoy competitively priced FTTH bundles and we look forward to continuing to deliver fast, reliable, high quality connectivity to them,¨ adds Willamson.

Pricing is applicable on the Vumatel network and is applicable to the Uncapped Basic and Uncapped Pro options.

While a growing number of South Africans in urban areas are turning to fibre to the home (FTTH) for higher bandwidth, they often overlook a vital piece of equipment in the connectivity chain, leading to a less than satisfactory end to end internet experience.

While subscribers are turning to FTTH packages with line speeds that go all the way to gigabit speeds, they find that the throughput to end user devices – their smartphones, tablets, media players and smart TVs – are sub-optimal. The real culprit here is very likely their WiFi router.

To provide a more seamless upgrade process, Vox now offers WiFi routers to customers who are selecting FTTH packages, with the option to choose from a wide range of products – priced between R1 799 and R6 999 –  depending on their connectivity requirements.

These include entry-level devices from MikroTik, mid-range devices from Ubiquiti Networks, high-end devices from Ruckus Wireless, and home mesh solutions from AirTies, with the option of once-off upfront payment or rental over 24 months.

Matching your connectivity requirements

“To select the right equipment, customers need to take into account the area they want to cover, as well as how many devices will be connected to the network concurrently,” says Richard Aikman, senior product manager at Vox. “If they are going to be doing a lot of HD streaming across devices, they need to make sure that the WiFi router can handle that.

“They might also want to consider a dual band WiFi router, so that they can make use of the 5Ghz band, which is far less congested, but they need to make sure that their devices support that band.”

Users must take into account where in the house their WiFi router is installed, and from where most of the devices are accessing the wireless network. They are often positioned next to the wall that is closest to where the external line comes in, with the wireless signal strength degrading as it passes through walls and other obstacles, leading to lower down- and upload speeds.

“While the best experience can be gained by ensuring that these two locations are as close together as possible, the WiFi router can also be placed in a central location to ensure even coverage across the house,” explains Aikman.

If users feel that their home WiFi router isn’t sufficient, or want coverage across a larger multi-story house, they should consider investing in additional infrastructure, such as wired access points that can provide stable and reliable connectivity to various rooms, or make use of a home mesh WiFi network. Turning to mid- and high-end routers further gives users the functionality to better manage their local network: to allocate bandwidth to users, to give priority to certain services, create guest accounts, and more.

“Consumers are spending to regularly update their devices and improve their internet connectivity, but the WiFi router is often neglected,” concludes Aikman. “While this is not an issue when using ADSL, switching to high speed fibre can quickly turn this piece of equipment into a bottleneck.”

By Vox CEO, Jacques du Toit

A number of planned communities being built with connectivity at their core – and not Johannesburg and Cape Town – are leading the local race toward being truly integrated smart cities that are using technology to enhance livability, workability and sustainability.

Cities around the world are increasingly turning to ICT to solve challenges arising from rapid urbanisation, inadequate infrastructure and residents demands for enhanced livability, workability and sustainability.

Smart cities collect data about themselves through a variety of means, communicate that data using wired or wireless connectivity, and then analyse the data to understand what is happening, and predict what is likely to happen in future.

While the smart city concept is gaining momentum in South Africa, local cities are still a long way off when compared to their counterparts in the US, Europe or – closer to home – with Dubai.

A major challenge deals with issue of legacy – it’s why we don’t believe that the first smart city in South Africa will be Johannesburg or Cape Town. These major urban areas have been built over a period of time using closed systems that aren’t designed to connect or communicate with each other.

Smart city initiatives often fail because of this siloed approach to city management, but overhauling these systems requires substantial investment. As such, turning these existing urban environments into smart cities takes time and upgrades need to be implemented in a staggered and economically sustainable manner.

Partnerships key to connectivity

However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t any smart cities in South Africa: smart city environments are being driven by developers who are entering into strategic partnerships with ICT providers to deliver broadband internet access to planned mixed-use communities and large-scale shopping centres around the country.

Planning is critical and Vox has been working with multiple top level developers in the country to ensure new developments are built with connectivity in mind from the very start. Without an abundance of data, and the ability to manage that data, a smart city or even a smart home cannot function.

Through these partnerships, Vox has developed an engagement model specifically geared towards the property development market in both the residential and retail space.  We have a selection of agile and tactical models which can be customised and tailored to the customer’s specific needs along with dedicated resources that are staffed to meet the property developer’s requirements.  Our formula is unique and we invite property development companies to talk to us about so that we can understand customer needs and align ourselves with meeting their business objectives and successes.

Developers have also realised that providing open-access high speed connectivity helps differentiate their properties in a competitive landscape and lay the groundwork for the creation of smart communities.

Economies of scale at such developments also mean it is far more cost-effective for connected homes to be offered off-plan. Some planned communities are even offering connectivity as a ‘fourth utility’ – in addition to electricity, water and gas – with the costs being added to the homeowner’s estate bill.

Vox has launched IT in a box, workstation maintenance and support services specifically designed for SMEs.

¨Instead of overwhelming SMEs with multiple options, we focused on three key pillars namely productivity, security and communication to simplify maintenance and IT support within their businesses,¨ says Ruan du Preez, senior product manager: managed IT services at Vox.

Designed for SMEs with 5 – 30 employees, IT in a Box provides user workstation fundamental maintenance and support.  In an effort to simplify the choices for business owners and decision makers, Vox has developed structured plans that provide a sliding scale of services, with pricing that starts at R379 per month, plan dependent.

For those SMEs that require additional flexibility, the company has also created a menu of customisable extras, that offers everything from Cloud backup to video conferencing through VoxAir and uncapped voice services through Vobi.

Concludes du Preez, “We know that SMEs are under immense pressure to keep their business running, and IT support and systems are often not a priority, but if not maintained, can lead to unforeseen downtime and compromised security.  We just want to make is easier and more cost effective for them.¨

Vox has finalised and lit up the first three precincts in Richards Bay, the first non-metropolitan town in its National Long Distance Fibre Project which was launched in October 2016. 

With a thriving industrial and mining sector, combined with the harbour, Richards Bay met the key criteria required to build a business case for fibre infrastructure investment, one that becomes the starting point of the long- distance fibre initiative.

“It is one thing creating the infrastructure and another connecting Richards Bay to other cities.  We evaluated our options and could easily have gone via Durban or Ballito.  But the route along the eastern leg of the country, along the N4 seemed like the best option, enabling us to deliver a better connectivity experience to the smaller towns along the route,” says Jacques du Toit, CEO of Vox.

Vox has engaged with over 440 customers over the last few months and in the process signed up over R662 000.00 in fibre sales.

Adds du Toit, “Our efforts at the moment are centred around delivering the remaining 15 precincts in Richards Bay and we are aiming to having this completed in the next 18 months.  We did unfortunately experience some delays which were beyond our control such as issues with soil conditions and received way leaves from council which was later than originally expected, but despite these challenges we are on track with the completion of the communications network.  Thereafter, we anticipate that the next viable town will be Middelburg”

The company has previously stated that economic factors need to be considered and while it isn’t immediately possible to deploy fibre in every single town, Vox is looking at ways of deploying wireless links via a high capacity backhaul to the towns along the eastbound leg of the country.

“Partnership with the WISPS will be a critical enabler for better connectivity in the small towns and we are looking forward to advancing these as we make our way back along the N4 route towards Gauteng,” concludes Du Toit.

 

 

 

While local companies are increasingly turning to Telephone Management Systems (TMS) to better manage their communication costs and better allocate budgets, advancements in this technology means that currently available features are just the start of what is possible.

A TMS traditionally comprises on-premise hardware and software that keeps track of incoming and outgoing calls, extensions used, numbers called, call duration and cost. With reporting from a TMS, businesses can manage employees’ usage, providing increased control over telephony costs, and avoiding bill shock at the end of the month.

Even in instances where companies subscribe to an uncapped Voice over IP (VoIP) service for a fixed fee, using a TMS helps ensure that there is no abuse of company resources, and that employees’ productivity levels are not being impacted due to time spent on unnecessary or personal calls.

However, as TMS moves toward being a cloud-based, per-user subscription service, there is huge potential for the system to evolve with the ability to accept data from a wide variety of devices. This allows companies to analyse and make sense of more than just their fixed-line and mobile telephony usage and costs.

Networked printers are already being linked in such systems: this goes beyond merely identifying which employees are using printers. By monitoring information collected about which printers are being used and how often, companies know when to order ink or toner in advance, or even actively engage in predictive maintenance.

Incorporation of video conferencing (VC) data can further allow companies to gauge usage by participants from different branches or sites, identify savings – what would have previously been spent on travel and accommodation costs – and more accurately calculate a return on their VC investment, be it for endpoints or monthly subscription fees.

Many companies already get detailed internet usage reports from their connectivity providers; adding this information to the system can give complete transparency into how employees are using company resources.

This opens up a host of new opportunities: as long as a device – or sensor of any sort – is connected to a network, a flexible cloud-based system can be updated with the ability to import that data.

Collecting data from multiple sources and displaying it in a manner that gives companies a holistic view of how their business operations allows them to put in place and enforce well-informed resource usage policies and forecast more accurate budgets.

By harnessing the full potential applications of such technology, businesses no longer merely have a simple telephony management system, but a complete expense management tool for their connectivity, communication and collaboration requirements.

Frogfoot Networks (Pty) Ltd, a licensed open access fibre network provider and wholly-owned subsidiary of integrated ICT and connectivity provider Vox, has recently secured funding to deploy fibre to the home (FTTH) to 15,000 homes in Gauteng and the Western Cape as part of a 24-month roll-out programme.

 “At the beginning of 2016, we embarked on an aggressive FTTH expansion programme and committed to deploy FTTH to 85,000 homes. We are currently in the process of building the infrastructure to over 16,000 homes, and with the additional funding are now able to fast-track the deployment to 15,100 homes in 2017,” says Abraham van der Merwe, Co-founder and Managing Director of Frogfoot.

 “2018 will see the deployment of the remaining 53,300 homes, although it is likely that this figure will grow substantially as the demand for FTTH continues. There is a massive appetite for fibre in South Africa, which is mainly driven by the current state of the existing cabled network that is simply not meeting the needs of the consumer. Today, users want high speed, uninterrupted connectivity at work and home, and it is this frustration that is driving fervent demand.”

As a result of this demand, there is still huge growth potential in the FTTH sector. As traditional content consumption habits evolve to become increasingly push based, the bandwidth requirements can only realistically be delivered over fibre.

“Viewing push content using a DSL link is challenging and while switching to high-speed LTE is the obvious option, it is a pricey alternative. Also, LTE – fixed or Wi-Fi – will never give the bandwidth capacity that fibre offers and simply won’t meet demand.”

Van der Merwe explains that the addressable FTTH market is between three million and six million homes, which means that Frogfoot currently have two per cent market saturation and reaffirms its growth strategy.

“Although deployment is driven by the commercial viability of the project and consumer demand, there remains huge untapped possibility,” concludes van der Merwe.

By Mauritz van Wyk, Senior Product Manager: Visual Communications at Vox

While there has been a steady increase in the use of video conferencing (VC) by larger South African corporates to enable workforce mobility and cut down on travel costs, new solutions are reducing the barrier to entry for small business.

With a requirement for substantial investment into infrastructure, traditional VC solutions have long remained the domain of enterprises – or exclusively C-Suite level executives at smaller companies. Even hosted business-grade solutions often require licensing fees to be paid per user, making it unaffordable for smaller companies with multiple branches and employees that need to be connected.

Service providers have recognised this latent demand and are moving to expand access by providing solutions that lower the cost of video conferencing. With Vox Air, a cloud-based solution, small business users can get enterprise quality audio, video and content sharing at a fraction of the cost.

The vendor independent solution acts as a VC technology integrator, meaning that all participants are not required to use the same hardware or install a common application, freeing up small business from having to invest in costly VC bridging equipment.

Instead, participants can use a wide range of devices, ranging from traditional VC endpoints to laptops and mobile devices to join a virtual meeting room as easily as making a phone call. The addition of a browser-based interface means that participants using a laptop, desktop or using the Vox Vobi application for IOS and Android devices.

Content sharing functionality allows participants to share documents or presentations, while tight integration with Microsoft Skype for Business means that even contents of the chat window can be easily shared across platforms to enable a fully collaborative environment. Participants from outside the organisation can also join in, while those without access to devices or a data network can join a conference by dialling in by using a local landline number.

A three-step security process is used to ensure that company information is safe: a PIN code and conference locking ability prevent unauthorised access, while 128 bit encryption is used to protect against more malicious threats.

Despite the continued improvements in internet speed and bandwidth availability in South Africa, having multiple users connecting to video conferences can put strain on a company’s network – Vox Air negates this by allowing for high definition video, audio and content sharing at just 768 kbps of bandwidth.

Customers are charged on a per number basis, with between 4 and 12 devices being able to participate in a video conference concurrently, depending on the package chosen, with 24/7 support available locally.

By replacing investment in expensive equipment or licensing fees with an affordable monthly subscription, South African small businesses can easily connect their branches, cut down on costs, and drive communication and collaboration within the organisation.