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4 November 2009

Confed Cup encountered no telecommunication glitches: Telkom

This year's FIFA Confederations Cup - played during the month of June - saw 100% broadcast efficiencies being enabled by the backbone ICT infrastructure that was provisioned by Telkom.

"In terms of our role in the broadcast value chain regarding communications provisioning for the Confederations Cup, there was not a single moment’s downtime that was experienced," said Thami Magazi, Telkom’s Group Executive for Multi-National Customers.

He added: "The Telkom core network was stable for the duration of the entire tournament without a single incident on our network impacting customer service. Our ASTN (Automatic Switching Transfer Network) which ensured a built-in redundancy or back-up, as well as the second Telkom hub within each stadium, guaranteed that no network-related glitches on Telkom's side resulted in customer services being interrupted."

Magazi explained that the efficiency of Telkom's network monitoring tools, which were complemented by the Group's highly vaunted Network Operations Centre (NOC), enabled the early detection and response to possible interruptions to service provisioning.

"As was required, the telecommunications solution that was defined and refined by Telkom provided for 99.99% availability with no single point of failure. We were able to surpass this," stated Magazi.

Besides the four Confederation Cup stadia - Loftus Versveld, Coca-Cola Park, Royal Bafokeng and Bloemfontein - Telkom's telecommunications equipment also extended to four hotels, four ticketing centres, FIFA's headquarters at Sandton, SAFA house in Johannesburg, a Data Centre which included several VPNS (Virtual Private Network Supreme) links, the welcome desk at the OR Tambo Airport and the PC Factory based in Isando.

"The ubiquity, resilience and reliability of Telkom's infrastructure were surpassed only by the expertise and determination of our personnel to ensure a successful Confederations Cup and, by extension, the 2010 FIFA World Cup as well," said Magazi.

"We have built a dedicated and highly capable team who are committed to making 2010 a bigger success than this year’s Confederation Cup. The experience they have gained, coupled with their expertise and indomitable attitude will stand us in better stead come 2010," enthused Magazi.

He emphasised, though, that Telkom will not rest on its laurels despite delivering a flawless FIFA Confederations Cup. "Despite our achievements, we are carefully dissecting how we could perform with greater efficiency and effectiveness for the final draw that takes place on 4 December 2009 in Cape Town and the 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament itself," concluded Magazi.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Pynee Chetty

Senior Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel:+27 12 642 1716

Mobile: +27 81 389 7874

Email: chettpr2@telkom.co.za

OR

Leigh-Ann Francis

Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel: +27 12 642 1728

Mobile: +27 81 391 4780

Email: francilm@telkom.co.za

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ABOUT TELKOM:

Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa. We had consolidated operating revenue of R16.8 billion and normalised profit after tax of R1, 683 million for the period ended 30 September 2015. Total assets amounted to R41.9 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R23.5 billion as of 30 September 2015. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R1.4 billion for the period ended 30 September 2015.

As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access lines in service and 1,030,441 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

  • fixed-line retail voice services using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of subscription based value-added voice services and calling plans;
  • fixed-line customer premises equipment rental and sales services both voice and data needs and these include PABX, Computers, Routers, Modems, Telephone handsets and other ancillary equipment;
  • interconnection services, including terminating and transiting traffic from South African mobile operators, as well as from international operators and transiting traffic from mobile to international destinations;
  • fixed-line data services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point-to-point leased lines, ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services, packet-based services, managed data networking services and internet access and related information technology services;
  • Data Centre Operations includes e-commerce, application service provider, hosting, data storage, e-mail and security services;
  • W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G next generation network, including fixed voice services, data services and nomadic voice services;
  • mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through our mobile navbar-brand called Telkom Mobile;
  •  information and communication services including cloud services, infrastructure services, workspace services, global service integration management and hardware and network equipment sales locally, in seven African countries, the UK and Dubai through Business Connexion Group; and
  • other services including directory services, through Trudon (Pty) Ltd, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd.

Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable future for Telkom.  We will lead the provision of converged services in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting people to a better life.