Local Internet service provider (ISP) OpenWeb has rolled out Africa's first bonded ADSL in the cloud, offering speeds of between 20Mbps and 50Mbps.
Bonded ADSL in the cloud allows up to seven ADSL lines to be bonded together, providing a single superfast upload and download speed, OpenWeb explains.
According to OpenWeb CEO Keoma Wright, the service targets users who cannot get Telkom's VDSL or fibre products.
"Telkom and its excessively high IPC [Internet protocol communications] rate is crushing and destroying the possibility of offering world-class ADSL in this country," says Wright.
"It is an absolute shock that they get away with charging twice for the same last-mile connection. They charge the client an ADSL rental, and then they charge the ISP to access the same last-mile rental the client has already paid for."
Wright says OpenWeb has been developing its bonded service for the past five years and it will be hosted in the Internet Solutions cloud. "This means amazing redundancy as there is no single failure point when working in the cloud."
He cites lower latency, higher availability, and faster speeds due to the multiple 1Gbps connections powering the cloud data centres as some of the benefits of bonded ADSL. OpenWeb offers a three-tier redundancy system that will ensure continued performance, he adds.
Wright says the ISP also developed the solution as an alternative to fibre, which is still not available to most businesses in SA. "Bonded fills the gap as it offers fast upload and download speeds at a great cost.
"We are finally happy to launch it commercially. We have developed an advanced system that offers true ADSL bonding."
Bonded ADSL in the cloud offers clients high speeds at a fraction of the cost of fibre or any other broadband technology, says Wright. "Many clients do not have access to fibre or even VDSL. They can now use bonded ADSL in the cloud for their wireless ISP, business, home or any application they see fit," he states.
OpenWeb is rolling out its product as uncapped. Packages start at R3 799 for two 10Mbps lines bonded with no limit and unshaped access.
"However, soon we will be launching capped solutions for clients who do not require the large uncapped flavour," says Wright.
The service comes with five static IP addresses, offers unshaped and uncapped data, and has international connectivity via Seacom, Sat-3 and Wacs.