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Telkom network powers municipal elections
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PDF The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has assigned Telkom the key role of providing telecommunications infrastructure to all of the IEC controlled election-related points of presence throughout SA.
As the 18 May municipal elections near, Telkom will also fulfilling the requests of broadcasters and media channels as they monitor the electoral process.
As people cast their votes at municipal offices, the data will be electronically scanned and transferred to the Provincial Results Centre. Votes will then be consolidated and electronically transferred to the IEC headquarters and Telkom’s data centre and finally presented in real time to the National Results Centre in Tshwane.
Godfrey Ntoele, Telkom’s managing executive for Large and Government Business Services, says Telkom is privileged to be part of the electoral process.
“The partnership between Telkom and the Electoral Commission has been a long and successful one…The elections do not happen only on election day. We have partnered the Electoral Commission in the registration process and the compilation of the voters roll, which started some time ago, and we continue providing communication services until long after election day is over,” he explained.
Telkom will in help enable the safe and secure delivery of ballot results from 20 864 polling stations around the country to the National Results Centre (NRC) in Tshwane.
“On the two registration weekends in February and March, in preparation for the 2011 Local Government Municipal elections, we provided the infrastructure to register over 23.6 million voters successfully. Telkom is committed to providing the most secure and stable telecommunications solution for the entire election process from start to finish, ensuring that every vote is counted,” says Ntoele.
The solution requires access for the IEC’s Wide Area Network (WAN) through Telkom’s Virtual Private Network Services (VPNS) platform that uses multiple access mediums including VSAT technology, Diginet/Martis, ATM, Metro LAN, Telkom’s ADSL and ISDN (Primary and Basic Rate) architecture.
“To this end Telkom’s extensive national footprint, ubiquitous network and the depth of skills and expertise within the organisation has facilitated the customer specific requirements of the IEC,” said Ntoele.
Cybernest, Telkom’s data centre operation will be used for the IEC’s Disaster Recovery (DR) efforts. Working as a mirror image of the IEC’s head office, all data activities at the IEC headquarters are replicated at Telkom’s data centre in real time. In the event of disaster at IEC headquarter the DR site will take over all activities and the elections will proceed uninterrupted.
Telkom has also provided the infrastructure for the IEC call centre in Centurion which was used during the voter registration process.
