“This is the future. This is fibre,” says CWS |16 October 2017

 CWS staff making the switch from copper to fibre

This is how a representative from Cable & Wireless Seychelles (CWS) has described the running of the fibre network  the company is currently undertaking all the way from our central office to cover the whole island.

The ‘Fibre To The Home’ (FTTH) project is connecting all existing and potential CWS clients, providing services like the internet, cable television, voice in a triple play format. CWS is expecting to take four years to cover the whole of Seychelles and the project is expected to be completed by 2020. And clients will see a marked quality improvement in terms of quality on their TV transmissions.

“Basically we are running the fibre network all the way from our central office to cover the whole island. The project is being done into phases. Right now we are completing Phase One where La Digue, central Victoria and sub districts like Union Vale, Mont Buxton, Mont Signal, Hangard Street, Bel Air, Sans Souci, Foret Noire down to Mont Fleuri. Second phase will be Praslin, possibly the north of Mahé from Beau Vallon to Anse Etoile then on to the rest of Mahé. The project is to cover the whole country.

Originally Cable & Wireless had a network based on copper technology. There is a lot of limitations with copper. The speed in which one receives services like data, interference like when the connection is done to an electricity poll, radio signal which also disturbs copper, is a problem. And with regards to upgrade, there is a certain limit that can be reached when dealing with copper technology.

A fibre optic cable is a network cable that contains strands of glass fibres inside an insulated casing. They're designed for long distance, very high performance data networking and telecommunications. Compared to wired cables, fibre optic cables provide higher bandwidth and  can transmit data over longer distances. Fibre optic cables support much of the world's internet, cable television and telephone systems. Fibre optic cables carry communication signals using pulses of light generated by small lasers or light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

The cable consists of one or more strands of glass, each only slightly thicker than a human hair. The centre of each strand is called the core, which provides the pathway for light to travel. The core is surrounded by a layer of glass called cladding that reflects light inward to avoid loss of signal and allow the light to pass through bends in the cable.

“So we are no longer deploying copper. Based on future demands where clients are requesting bandwidth intensive service, we have to upgrade our service. And we cannot do that with the copper technology. So we moved on to fibre. Fibre is a future proof network and the capacity to upgrade is limitless,” said Expedit Raoul, Line Plant Project Manager at Cable & Wireless. Expedit was supervising his technician during a fibre installation at Bel Air. After having completed work on La Digue, the next stop will be Perseverance.

Future proof, he said, is if tomorrow for example, you install a fibre network or infrastructure in place, you do not need to change anything for many, many more years to come.

“So basically if you want to upgrade, you will not get the interference because it is passive and there is no electrical interference. It is not dangerous to people touching that fibre as it’s just light passing through,” said Expedit.

Mr Raoul said one can load the fiber as much as one wants. Until now nobody has not been able to fill up a fibre space.

“It is limitless in terms of capacity. That’s why I described it as future proof,” he said.

Mr Raoul said a customer can have a cable TV service in a room and from the same account another person can access that TV and can even watch another channel from the one being projected on the outsourcing me.

“In the meantime we are offering two services in one. If a person is in the sitting room, his or child can watch another channel in his or her room. It’s like another service but on top of what you already have,” he said.

Shedding more details on how the fibre works, Mr Raoul said 128 people can be provided service from a core fibre by the use of splitters.

“We split it all along the way. There is just a port from our central office which can be split among 128 customers. We are not using the maximum but only half of it which is 64. So its 64 customers on one port,” he said. This, he said, is because there is a certain bandwidth which everybody needs to get access to.

“Minimum you can get is 40MB in terms of bandwidth and the maximum is over a 100 Meg, which can be upgraded to whatever amount you want to pay for. But right now on copper you can get a maximum of only 20-25,” he explained.

CWS has the main part of their network infrastructure underground running mainly across the coastline. For central Victoria it is 100% underground. But going out in mountainous area, it is not easy for the company to have underground infrastructure due to the topographic condition of the islands.

CWS said for the moment the service is being provided for free just to entice their customers in opting for fibre later on.

“We are providing them free internet connection, free TV including installation on a month trial basis all for free,” said Mr Raoul.