Verizon SA seeks bandwidth deals

Johannesburg, 11 Sept 2007

Verizon SA will sign deals with as many bandwidth providers as possible to ensure its solutions are fail-safe, says business development executive Elia Tsouros.

The local subsidiary already has access to the SAT-3 cable through its participation in a consortium that has ownership in the cable. From November, the company will be able to land its own capacity through the cable, at potentially cheaper rates.

However, Tsouros says this access to international bandwidth is not enough to guarantee its services to customers.

"What we are looking at is a redundancy plan. For international bandwidth, we are looking at developments around the landing of undersea cables and entering deals where we can. We are also looking at deals which will address our redundancy requirements for national transportation."

National transportation deals include both fixed and wireless providers, says Tsouros.

No roll-out

Last month, the South African subsidiary said it had R7 million to invest in upgrades. However, Tsouros says this will not be used to establish its own network, similar to other industry players.

"Internationally, Verizon is laying its own cable, but we are not doing that locally. With the deals that we have, and are, signing we are confident we have enough capacity and enough of a fail-safe built in to meet our needs. Locally, our strategy is more along the line of network aggregator. Of course, you can never say never; but, at the moment, we have no desire to self-provide," he explains.

Verizon's infrastructure strategy into the rest of the continent is similar. For coastal countries, the company has entered deals with cable owners. However, it is still largely reliant on satellite services in land-locked countries.

"We've been very fortunate. Internationally, we signed on for satellite services early on and now have a head start on other multinationals that may be looking at entering these regions. Particularly in Africa, this early investment has turned out to be a trump card," he explains.