Elections are the sharp end of democracy and South Africa has built a reputation of excellence in the way it runs them – and Telkom plays a big role.

Telkom has been providing connectivity to South Africa’s Electoral Commission (IEC) for a number of years. Headquartered in Centurion, just south of Pretoria, the IEC has offices across the country and, like every organisation today, depends on the reliability and speed of its network infrastructure to get the work done effectively.

So far, a very normal partnership between client and service provider, one might think. But given the IEC’s constitutional mandate to oversee the country’s elections, both for local and national government, corporate normality is turned on its head each time an election is called. That’s when Telkom’s ability to deliver is put to the ultimate test.

“When we originally went out to tender, we invited everybody to participate,” recalls Libisi Maphanga, the IEC’s CIO. “It rapidly became clear that only Telkom, which was then the incumbent operator, had the scale to provide the coast-to-coast coverage we needed.”

Maphanga’s point is that the IEC, like many government departments, has offices in remote areas far from business hubs, so coverage was a challenge. A second important requirement was the ability to scale up and down. For most of the time, as noted, the normal levels of connectivity a branch office would require, depending on its size, are necessary. But when elections happen, the connectivity provider needs to be able to increase bandwidth, often by several multiples.

“We also didn’t want to enter into a contract with anyone who in turn would have to subcontract to a third party,” notes Maphanga. “During election time, the network has to scale to meet a surge in demand for bandwidth for a short period of time – and absolute reliability is a must, especially during results reporting.”


The 2011 local government elections

Local government elections in 2011 were the latest test of the relationship between the IEC and Telkom, and of Telkom’s ability to rise to the extraordinary challenge an election presents, particularly as its date remains a closely-guarded secret until it is officially proclaimed by either the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs in case of local government elections or the President in case of national and provincial elections.

In addition, every election has its own particular challenges, and this one was no different. One was IEC’s move to new headquarters in Centurion just before the elections were due.

Another challenge was the move of the IEC’s network onto Telkom’s ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) backbone – also just prior to the elections. This move further upgraded the IEC’s infrastructure, and Telkom was able to reduce the number of VSAT (very small aperture satellite) lines to 16; down from 70. This move meant that many more municipalities were now on the terrestrial network, and so on the IEC’s secure virtual private network (VPN) provided by Telkom. For the 2011 elections, Telkom provided more than 350 VPN lines to 327 municipal election offices around the country.

Telkom’s constantly expanding next-generation network, of course, was greatly enhanced by the work done in preparation for the FIFA 2010 World Cup™.

The IEC coordinates the whole complex business of running an election through a Results Operations Centres (ROC), with nine provincial results centres. These centres, and particularly the NRC itself, are insatiable consumers of bandwidth, at least in part because of the need to provide bandwidth for the media. The SABC, as the national broadcaster, has a clear mandate to provide extensive coverage of all phases of the election. “This year, we had to provide the SABC with an upgraded video broadcasting link,” notes Maphanga. “Up from the bandwidth provided during the 2009 national elections.”

As these were local government elections, foreign media did not have a significant presence but local media, print, radio and television, all had to be serviced.

A significant challenge for Telkom is that some of the provincial and municipal results centres have to move into temporary larger premises for the upsurge of activity during the election period, and this requires the rapid connection of the new site with the required capacity. Very often, these temporary sites are only accessible at the last moment, requiring Telkom’s staff to work under severe deadline pressure.

“Preparing for an election is always challenging,” says Mosima Kekana, IEC account manager for Telkom. “Everything is urgent and we have to deal with many late applications for services from political parties and so on, as well as constantly changing service requirements. The sheer scale of the deployments also adds its own complexities. But with good planning and close collaboration, we are able to deploy the right skills and resources to where they are needed around the country.”


IT’S ALL IN THE PLANNING

An election is indeed a major exercise in forward planning and logistics for the IEC. Part of this planning includes a survey of the infrastructure of voting sites on which the IEC will rely; including accessibility, water, electricity, sanitation, and connectivity. Once these plans take shape, Maphanga convenes a planning meeting with Telkom in order to communicate the connectivity requirements for each office and results centre. Voting stations per se are not connected to the IEC network. “In many instances, voting takes place at sites such as schools where there are phone lines. But where there is no fixed connectivity, we liaise with the cellular providers to see if they can provide coverage – sometimes we have to rely on two-way radios,” Maphanga says.

During the planning session, Maphanga also communicates the timelines. This time round, Telkom only had approximately two months to connect the National ROC. Another characteristic of the election period is the spikes in bandwidth requirements that have to be accommodated. For example, during the voter registration weekends, the bandwidth requirement increases by an average factor of four.

“It’s not just about timelines.

We need the redundancy built in to accommodate these spikes but also to ensure quality of service,” Maphanga explains.


A JOB WELL DONE

In the end, the 2011 elections passed off smoothly, thanks to the meticulous planning and operational experience of the IEC, and the hard work of partners such as Telkom. “Downtime – particularly when it comes to the period after voting when results are being reported – just isn’t an option for us, and Telkom didn’t let us down,” says Maphanga. “It’s at times like this that you realise the depth of skills and resources that Telkom can call on when one is in a crunch situation.”

C O N T A C T

Nonku Dlamini
Executive: Government Sales
Telkom SA Limited
Tel: +27 12 680 7172
Fax: +27 12 680 7415
Cell: +27 81 454 2750
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Website: www.telkom.co.za

Libisi Maphanga
Chief Information Officer: IEC
Tel: 012 622 5589
Fax: 012 622 5333
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Website: www.elections.org.za