Two Cisco Catalyst 4900M switches, donated by Cisco SA and Business Connexion (BCX), to the Internet Service Providers' Association of SA (ISPA), are expected to go live today.
"The sponsorship, valued at R1 million, forms part of our ongoing strategy to support broadband enablement in SA and to help businesses to improve productivity, cost saving and return on investment," says Craig Zeeman, regional sales manager for service provider Wireline at Cisco.
According to ISPA, the switches will allow South African ISPs to peer at substantially higher speeds. “This is an important step in ensuring that SA's Internet industry has the bandwidth it needs to support projected growth in demand for Internet services in the years to come.
Jinx enables ISPA members to interconnect networks and exchange traffic. In 1996, Jinx's four links boasted speeds varying from 64Kbps to 256Kbps. “Twelve years later, link speeds vary from 2Mbps to 1Gbps.”
The Cisco Catalyst 4900M Series is an extension to the Cisco Catalyst 4900 Series top-of-rack Ethernet switches designed for data centre networks. Zeeman says: "These compact, high-performance switches will provide Jinx with the performance it needs to support its peering ISPs in a form factor that is easy to maintain.”
ISPA has thanked BCX for sponsoring the shipping costs associated with transporting the donated equipment. "We are also thankful to Cisco Systems for this sponsorship because it provides us with a solid platform to provide the level of service that our ISP members and their customers deserve," says Rob Hunter, ISPA's Jinx working group chairman of the exchange.
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