XDSL, a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) that recently announced a South African first in the provision of high speed, high capacity 25Megabits per second (Mbps), 50Mbps and 100Mbps fibre broadband connectivity, has secured a direct link to the West African Cable System (WACS) via Telehouse in London. By peering directly with this international ISP, XDSL boosts its international Internet capacity, giving customers of its superfast 25/50/100Mbps offerings greater assurance of the stability, reliability and ongoing affordability of the solution.
Says XDSL Director Danie Fourie: “Our 25Mbps, 50Mbps and 100Mbps fibre broadband connectivity offering has made a significant impact in the market and we are seeing rapid uptake. Expanding our existing international fibre broadband capacity adds redundancy, ensuring the reliability of international connectivity and removing reliance on local network providers.”
Network neutrality adds agility, stability, reliability
Telehouse is a neutral point of interconnection and a major hub for all top tier ISPs around the world. It operates through 11 co-location facilities that cover the UK, France, Germany, Turkey and South Africa, and has a global network of 45 data centres in EMEA, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region that cover all major commercial and financial hubs.
Explains Fourie: “Telehouse is a neutral Internet exchange. As a co-location facility it facilitates direct any-to-any network connectivity. With a peer-to-peer fibre link into Telehouse, XDSL secures direct access to the international fibre broadband capacity of WACS.”
The 5.12 Terabits per second (Tbps), 14 000km long fibre optic sub-marine cable system raises South Africa’s international broadband capacity by over 500 Gigabits per second (Gbps), more than doubling the country’s 2011 capacity. Spanning the west coast of Africa and terminating in the United Kingdom, WACS enables seamless connectivity into the rest of Europe and America.
Notes Fourie: “By peering directly with Telehouse, XDSL is in essence not reliant on any other network provider in South Africa for access to the international connectivity WACS provides. It means we have greater redundancy in terms of international connectivity — and massive redundancy is at the heart of the network neutrality strategy XDSL follows. The multiple back to back agreements we have with local and international network infrastructure owners and service providers enables us to ensure that clients’ get the reliability and throughput they need to conduct any-to-any business communication when they need to.
“In a nutshell, if any major local or international network link goes down or becomes congested, our national operations centre and data centre staff are aware of the problem before it affects our clients, and will route their communications via alternative networks. This ensures we can confidently deliver on our connectivity and throughput promises.”
25Mbps, 50Mbps and 100Mbps fibre broadband
It’s not surprising that XDSL’s 25Mbps, 50Mbps and 100Mbps fibre broadband connectivity offering is gaining a lot of interest, says Fourie. “Greater broadband capacity and faster throughput enable the high speed up- and downloads that have become essential for organisations — from SMMEs to large enterprises — to take advantage of the multitude of benefits that cloud and hosted solutions offer. Broadband fibre’s real-time, synchronous and low latency connectivity is ideal for IP services like VoIP, hosted PBX and a range of other technologies. In addition, fibre optic cable offers other key benefits over copper: it eliminates cable theft, signal deterioration and latency issues, and facilitates connectivity at greater distances from the exchange.”
To ensure maximum capacity utilisation and optimised costing, XDSL’s high-speed broadband fibre offering will be delivered as a contended service. XDSL guarantees a maximum of 10 to one contention ratio with minimum levels of 70 percent of advertised speeds at all times. With these low contention rates however, users can expect an average of up to 90 percent effective speeds, notes Fourie.
Pricing on the solutions varies depending on the broadband speed required, the availability of last mile connectivity as well as the operator fibre in use for the last mile.
Metro Fibre pricing excluding VAT:
- 25Mbps – R15 500 per month
- 50Mbps – R27 250 per month
Metro Ethernet pricing excluding VAT:
- 25Mbps – R21 950 per month
- 50Mbps – R37 150 per month
- 100Mbps – R64 370 per month
“Our high-speed broadband offering is ideal for any business with high data traffic and capacity requirements, from large corporates to smaller and medium enterprises,” Fourie reiterates. “And for organisations that are still building up to 25Mbps, XDSL has a 15Mbps offering. XDSL’s focus is on meeting our client’s needs intelligently, reliably and affordably.”
For more information, visit www.xdsl.co.za
