Johannesburg, 23 Jun 2009
Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), a leading telecommunication company, which provides infrastructure to telecommunications, cellular and Internet service providers, today announced the formal launch of its network. The service providers will in turn provide data and video broadband services, including voice. The launch will be done in collaboration with Cisco Systems, a worldwide leader in the networking space.
Today's launch marks a milestone for DFA, which has already made rapid progress in creating an open access dark fibre network in major metropolitan areas, with over 800km of fibre-optic cable laid in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town. DFA owns, builds, maintains, secures and monitors the dark fibre network and has to date made private sector investment of R1.5 billion in the network infrastructure.
Malcolm Kirby, manager of sales and marketing at DFA, says individual service providers will be able to lease fibre-optic cable from DFA. “The dark fibre is then 'lit' by each service operator when they deliver new high-speed services to their customers.” Kirby adds that DFA started its network in 2007, and today's launch marks key milestones, where the company has just successfully achieved a roll-out of over 800km and concluded contractual agreements with multiple customers.
Khudusela Pitje, director at DFA, said the nature and structure of the network are changing and generating new rules of engagement and interaction. “Through our network, we can help transform businesses and life experiences, while at the same time reducing complexity, leveraging investments, decreasing costs, and improving business agility to be more competitive. Our network addresses and meets the needs for broadband beyond 2010.”
With the launch, DFA plans to introduce a new phenomenon called hyperband, which will provide enough capacity to accommodate all networks, allowing mobile operators to improve the quality of service.
According to Reshaad Sha from Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group, the evolution of the Internet towards next-generation networks (NGN), coupled with the large scale deployment of broadband, social networks and video services, have fuelled an exponential bandwidth growth at the transport layer, which service providers in South Africa have begun to experience.
"Internationally, this exponential growth of traffic at the transport layer has led major service providers around the globe to consider the move from 1G to 10G to 40G and beyond service-based offerings."
Moreover, the dynamic nature of bandwidth requirement along with its ever-changing traffic pattern, dictate a more flexible, resilient and cost-effective NGN architecture across the metro, regional and long-distance network environment. "This is where a strong partnership between Cisco and DFA becomes relevant, to jointly assist customers to build networks in ways that enhance the resiliency and the survivability of their networks as they increase their capacity carrying mission-critical data," adds Sha.
DFA's open access network eliminates the need for each operator to create its own cable network. Kirby further adds: “DFA's network was designed with excess capacity to accommodate all service providers, and it is no longer necessary for any additional trenches to be dug by service providers where DFA already has a network. This dramatically reduces the disruption of road traffic and municipal services and allows operators to provide their services far more rapidly to customers.”
DFA's shared open access model makes economic and environmental sense as it allows the plethora of new and existing telecoms and Internet providers to share rather than duplicate trenches and cabling infrastructure along major routes. This shared open access model has been successful in other competitive markets around the world, where it as been encouraged by regulatory and city authorities because it lowers costs and minimises environmental disruption.
DFA is working with a number of service providers, large and small, who recognise the value of sharing a cable network. “We are able to provide any service provider, from the well established telecommunications and Internet providers, through to even the newest start-up such as NGO, municipal and government bodies, with immediate low-cost infrastructure,” said Kirby.
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