Before mobile phones were everywhere, fixed telephone lines were how a country communicated. Building that network meant planning thousands of street cabinets that connect individual homes and offices to the exchange. In 2001, ACTS carried out the survey and design of 1,300 copper cabinets serving 520,000 telephone lines for Sudatel.
What cabinet design involves
Each cabinet is a distribution point between the exchange and the customer. Designing 1,300 of them means surveying locations, planning capacity for the lines each area needs, and making sure the whole network fits together. At 520,000 lines, it was a large-scale planning exercise for the national operator.
A long relationship with Sudatel
The cabinet project was one of several pieces of work ACTS delivered for Sudatel over the years:
- 1995: supply of 150 km of 3.2 mm PVC telecom ducts
- 1999: GMACS, a graphical monitoring and control system
- 2001: survey and design of 1,300 copper cabinets (520,000 lines)
- 2004: erecting towers and masts for 33 sites in Al-Dabba, Northern Sudan, including the civil works
Together, these projects cover almost every layer of a telecom network: the ducts that protect cables, the cabinets that distribute lines, the systems that monitor the network, and the towers that carry signals.
Building in remote areas
The 2004 tower project in Al-Dabba involved 33 sites in Northern Sudan, including civil works. Building towers away from major cities brings its own challenges: moving materials and teams over long distances and completing foundations and structures that will stand for decades.
Experience that carries forward
The skills built on these projects, from network planning to field construction, are the same ones behind our later work, including the Zain fiber backbone in Khartoum and today’s data center and network services.
Need telecom infrastructure?
ACTS has delivered network and telecom projects in Sudan since 1992. See our network services or contact our team.