Johannesburg, 23 Jul 2009
Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), which provides an open access fibre-optic network infrastructure, will tomorrow officially hand over the first commercial fibre-optic route linking the Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa (TENET) to the Seacom cable landing site at Mtunzini. This will significantly increase bandwidth supply and improve international connectivity for research institutions in South Africa. DFA is also well advanced in rolling out its national high-speed broadband fibre network infrastructure.
TENET, a non-profit organisation, runs a national research and education network of more than 100 research sites within SA, and they will use DFA's infrastructure to link these sites to the Mtunzini Seacom cable, thus providing them with access to international gateways and substantially increased bandwidth needed for world-class research and education services. It is responsible for securing connectivity and associated services for the institutions, which include all 23 of South Africa's universities and most of the research councils.
“The deal with DFA,” says Duncan Martin, CEO of TENET, “provides us with up to 10Gbps from Seacom's Mtunzini landing station in KwaZulu-Natal.”
“The link for TENET, from Mtunzini to Durban, was the fastest roll-out of an infrastructure network in the history of SA fibre deployment,” says DFA Executive: Sales and Marketing, Malcolm Kirby, adding that this 153 kilometre stretch was completed within two months. DFA's speed and its use of sophisticated trenching equipment enabled it to roll out the link at over two kilometres per day per team.
“With the launch of Seacom's undersea cable, bandwidth supply will be increased significantly. We are anticipating a bandwidth revolution. Consumers can look forward to substantially faster and cheaper Internet connectivity in the near future,” says Kirby.
DFA has concluded agreements with other telecommunications and Internet service providers to use its infrastructure to further connect networks and eliminate duplication.
DFA plans to complete its fibre network connecting Mtunzini and Johannesburg by early 2010. “We decided to take the long route and not merely follow the N3, to ensure that major towns such as Piet Retief, Ermelo, Richardsbay and Vryheid are covered by our network, thus also providing them access to international gateways and increased bandwidth,” says Kirby.
DFA is well positioned to meet the needs of telecommunications and Internet service providers as it is currently the only company able to offer infrastructure management and monitored fibre connections to Seacom. “DFA offers a secure network with access control and audit trails and will also serve other undersea cables, such as Eassy, in future,” says Gustav Smit CEO of DFA.
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