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Fastly extends its Internet services to Africa

Sibahle Malinga
By Sibahle Malinga, ITWeb senior news journalist.
Johannesburg, 28 Apr 2017
Tom Daly, VP of infrastructure at Fastly.
Tom Daly, VP of infrastructure at Fastly.

Edge cloud platform provider Fastly has added SA to its global network reach by collaborating with global network service provider Workonline Communications and data centre service provider Teraco, to provide high-speed Internet services.

Fastly says it delivers fast, secure and scalable online real-time experiences to organisations. The company also provides broadcast-quality videos across all devices, improves Web and application performance and application programming interface content delivery traffic, it adds.

Workonline Communications is a terrestrial service provider of fibre-based connectivity services that bring Internet to African countries through carriers and content delivery networks (CDN) such as Fastly.

"For Internet users in SA, this collaboration means the speed of Internet delivered by Fastly's edge cloud will be much faster, more responsive and it will provide an efficient browsing experience. Fastly customers will get the power to extend their sites directly into otherwise hard to reach locations through its global network of 35 points-of-presence (POP)," says Fastly.

Some of Fastly's global clients include Airbnb, The New York Times and Ticketmaster.

"We realise the importance and benefits of a CDN deploying in our market, particularly in terms of improved quality and cost reduction," says Workonline's director of business development, Edward Lawrence.

"Major CDNs like Fastly's offering add enormous potential to the development of the local market as a whole. Workonline Communications is committed to providing the best for Africa, as well as to developing the African market in every way possible. We are excited to be involved in the launch of Fastly in Africa."

CDNs are an essential tool to successfully conduct business online, as the Internet was not originally built to handle the demands of massive amounts of data, live HD video, flash sales, and large downloads that have now become the standard, he adds.

"Our collaboration with the teams at Workonline and Teraco enabled Fastly to quickly deploy a Fastly MegaPOP into Johannesburg. Our expanded reach reduces latency, improves performance, and enables a more robust user experience in SA and neighbouring countries. We feel this is a win-win for the Internet ecosystem of SA," says Tom Daly, VP of infrastructure at Fastly.

Michele McCann, head of business development at Teraco, agrees it is consumers who ultimately benefit from access to a CDN rich in content. "Fastly provides a CDN service to digital organisations like BuzzFeed, Pinterest, Shopify, Shazam and Alaska Airlines from key access points on the Internet POPs. This indispensable service reduces network transit time when delivering content to end-users who are now able to enjoy a richer experience from these online organisations."

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