Question NW403 to the Minister of Home Affairs
03 March 2022 - NW403
Ismail, Ms H to ask the Minister of Home Affairs
(Whether the office of his department in Benoni has put a redundancy connection plan in place to reduce its dependence on the State Information Technology Agency’s connection; if not, by what date is it anticipated that a redundancy connection plan will be put in place; if so, what is the reason for the specified office still experiencing regular downtime?
Reply:
The main reason for network downtime in Benoni was due to power issues within the local SITA switching centre (Bedfordview) which provides local connectivity for other offices such as Edenvale (which has a backup connection independent of Bedfordview switching centre), Alberton, and Germiston. The current priority is to upgrade 133 single data line front offices that are running on 1MB DIGINET to a 2MB Microwave/Fibre link (with LTE being used as an interim solution) from the limited funds – a reprioritisation of funds is being undertaken through consolidation of IT contracts.
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