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28 August 2013

Students showcase research at SATNAC 2013

The South African Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC) is recognised for the platform afforded to young scientists and engineers to share views on key challenges facing the industry and to discuss the progress achieved in their applied research.

This year the conference will host 70 full paper presentation; 20 work in progress presentations and 25 poster presentations from students at the 16 Telkom Centres of Excellence (CoE).

Mr Alphonzo Samuels, Telkom's Managing Executive for Network Infrastructure Provisioning and Conference chairman says, "SATNAC offers these students the ideal opportunity to showcase their research and network with industry leaders. The conference also provides industry the opportunity to come and see these future industry leaders in action."

The Telkom CoEs have been established across the country, at various universities, making it the largest coordinated research effort in the ICT sector in South Africa. To date the programme has produced approximately 2500 Doctoral and Masters level graduates.

In the last year, 41 Telkom bursars conducted their research at the various Centres of Excellence. This year, 15 of these students completed their research and have been employed at Telkom. Currently, 33 Telkom bursars are conducting their research at the 16 CoEs across the country.

"It is often said that there is too little interaction between academic institutions and industry. SATNAC provides that opportunity for industry to influence tertiary institutions to become more outcome-focused and prepare engineers for their roles when they enter the workplace," concludes Mr Samuels.

SATNAC 2013 will be held from 1 to 4 September at Spier Wine Estate in the Western Cape. The conference starts with a Welcome Function on Sunday evening. The traditional icebreaker golf day will begin at 09:00 on Sunday at the De Zalze Winelands Golf Estate.

BDTV, the official broadcast partner for the conference, will broadcast the plenary sessions live and will also broadcast a highlights package in the week after the conference. BDTV is available on DSTV Channel 412.

All registrations have to be completed online (www.satnac.org.za). Information on hotel accommodation can also be found on the website.

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;
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  • 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.

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