WORLDWIDE MARKET RESEARCH REPORT - CISE

EC/IST FP6 Project No 026920
Work Package: 6
Type of document: Report
Date: 20.12.2007
File name: OP_WP6_D37_V1.0.doc Version: 1.0
Title: Worldwide Market Research Report 237 / 356
of Harare following similar thefts. ZESA was last week granted leave to hike power
tariffs by up to 270 per cent in a move meant to cut down on blackouts.
Figure 5-36 Power line theft leaves South Africa in dark
This phenomenon could also be extended to other types of infrastructures, nevertheless,
since the electric cables are more lower and accessible part, in comparison to the wireless
antennas and to the satellitaire receivers, these effects could damage the PLC services.
The very great distances
Africa is a very vast continent and the inhabited centers are small and sporadic. Because of
the great distances that elapse among the inhabited centers, especially in the rural areas,
length of electrical cables has to be very great. This would cause the use of many PLC
repeaters (additionally, it needs to also consider the hostile environmental conditions of use:
high temperature and high damp). Increasing the number of repeaters (that are among the
most expensive PLC components) could bring the total cost of the infrastructure to an
elevated level, upper for example to the cost required for a Wi-MAX coverage. From this, it
follows that the implementation of a PLC service must be carefully valued. However,