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How Wits University’s New “Light Beam” Tech Can Bring Fibre to Informal Settlements

An experimental setup in the Optical Communications Laboratory used to develop optimal error correction schemes. A team of students and lecturers from South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) is developing new technology at the Optical Communications Laboratory (OC Lab) in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering. The team hopes the new low-cost innovation can bridge the peri-urban digital divide in South Africa. Visiting rooftops in search of optimal locations to test the system is one of the perks of the job. From left are students Alice Drozdov, Victoria Bench, Keitumetsi Khoza, Blake Denham with Dr Mitchell Cox, co-founder of the Optical Communications Laboratory at Wits University. The tech has been described as a beam of light “from a fibre-connecte...