Internet Solutions (IS), the African continent`s leading Pan-African IP and converged communications services provider, has increased its VSAT presence across the continent to more than 3 000 nodes. This comes with the recent acquisition of Accelon Nigeria.
Jacques Rautenbach, Manager of IS`s Emerging Africa Division, is solely focused on securing and providing connectivity for a rapidly growing Pan-African business community.
"We have doubled our African business year-on-year to 46 countries and over 3 000 VSAT terminals using over 600Mhz of space segment. We currently have an MPLS point of presence in eight countries - Mauritius, Nigeria, Namibia, Ghana, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Angola and Kenya - and 13 new points of presence (POPs) are planned for the 2008 financial year."
Rautenbach says the recipe for success is due to the company`s commitment and focus to the region, long-term investment, stringent engineering standards and the ability to leverage off the strength of parent company Dimension Data`s African reputation.
"Dimension Data has one of the best reputations throughout Africa in the converged communications space," says Rautenbach, "and this, together with the IS infrastructure, has enabled us to offer Afro-centric solutions that clearly demonstrate an understanding of the region`s unique needs. We understand the challenges of African communications and lack of terrestrial and fibre connectivity, so we provision carrier-class VSAT services to provide reliable, efficient and cost-effective solutions alongside available terrestrial solutions. A stable infrastructure is essential for IS and Dimension Data to deliver on our SLAs and provide our complete suite of value-added services."
According to Rautenbach, Africa offers lucrative opportunities for economic expansion for global organisations, especially in high GDP countries such as Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and Angola. "There are many domestic opportunities in these countries, and South African and European enterprises want reliable services from reliable and sustainable companies able to deliver world-class solutions. We went out and looked for service providers on the ground that we could either acquire or partner with to gain our foothold across the region."
"For example, we have 47 staff at Internet Solutions Kenya, and our Nigerian acquisition of Accelon brings us a highly competent and experienced staff of 70. They benefit by receiving our training, resources and management and the customers can now enjoy an increased solution set from the IS bouquet."
The solutions and services are mainly focused on the financial services, oil and gas and public sectors in each area and offer full management of the customers` triple play content - voice, video and data - MPLS with all its value-added services, and provision of IP services in general.
"Deregulation of the communications industries in many African countries to our North has accelerated the growth and provision of network solutions to the continent," says Rautenbach. "We can provide connectivity to just about the entire African continent; we have engineering resources on the ground and look at each opportunity as a unique, custom-built requirement, ensuring we meet or exceed service level agreements. Because we understand the continent, the cultures, the challenges, and the need for enterprise class services, we are delivering the technology using economies of scale to the benefit of entire communities. It`s an exciting era for African communications."
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Internet Solutions (IS), is a leading provider of end-to-end connectivity solutions and related services across the African continent. The people at IS are passionate about constantly innovating and delivering solutions and services that are relevant and critical to their customers. These services are built on a world-class, secure, resilient infrastructure, delivered according to global best practices and effected in partnership with the world`s leading technology vendors. It is through these services and solutions that IS creates a competitive edge for their customers` communication needs, and promote sustainable business growth.
The business was founded in 1992 on the principle of developing a robust infrastructure in order for corporates and other organisations to communicate. Since then, IS has established itself as a leader in this space, attracting over 80% of South Africa`s top businesses as clients. From listed companies to non-governmental organisations, local and national government and smaller companies, IS is enabling and evolving communications to meet the business needs of thousands of customers.
Today the company enjoys a leadership position as it delivers services including: hosting, access, security solutions, virtual private network (VPN), mobile solutions, VOIS, African solutions, broadband, and application services (ASP). Recent growth in the African economy has resulted in IS spreading its services across all parts of the continent as clients demand reliable and robust networking connectivity in the African market. Internet Solutions has been certified as a Level 4 contributor to BEE (100% compliant), and has earned an impressive collection of accolades and awards.
Partnerships with major global players such as Cisco and Microsoft are also fundamental to IS, and as such Internet Solutions was recently awarded Microsoft Gold Certification in the Hosting specialisation for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (Hosted Exchange and SharePoint) and Managed Hosting Solutions - the first South African company to achieve this accreditation. Similarly in 2002, IS was certified as a Cisco Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), the first company outside of the US to be awarded this accolade.
For more visit us on www.is.co.za
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