A new Internet service provider and telco carrier, ONEdotCOM, debuted in the local market last week, aiming to take voice, data and video in converged end-to-end services to the corporate market.
The new company, which has been in the pipeline for three years, is a merger between DNS and BCSnet. ONEdotCOM forms part of the Blue Platinum Ventures (BPV) group, and has a close relationship with BWired (the company that is deploying the City of Johannesburg's broadband fibre network, in partnership with Ericsson).
According to ONEdotCOM CEO Niel de Wet, “ONE” refers to the merger, as well as the company's position as the “first or number one in the telco 2 space”.
“The dotCOM uniquely identifies and highlights our belief that a new-age telecommunications service provider is needed to address the concept of a Web 2 information-rich corporate communications space.”
De Wet says telecoms are no longer about telephones and the Internet. “As a service provider, ONEdotCOM will strive to lead the market in the concept of creating knowledge repositories for our customers and their sphere of stakeholders, as opposed to merely selling communication mediums as products.
“As a telco carrier and wholesaler, we have and will continue to take full advantage of the rapid evolution of new generation carrier infrastructure and technologies that is becoming available and feasible in Southern Africa,” says De Wet.
Leveraging partnerships
According to De Wet, ONEdotCOM leverages off the partnerships in networks and carrier-class technology suppliers that the BPV group brings to the table.
“We have combined this advantage with our own experience in this industry, and believe that we understand what is required of a wholesale supplier and are able to build long-term relationships with other service providers.
“The fact that we do not sell legacy systems also allows our partners to enhance their service and product portfolios utilising our carrier-class product offering.”
The fledgling company's primary focus is to take the lead in creating and delivering a Southern African cloud and partner with both local and international solution and content providers, according to De Wet.
“That information stream needs to be seamless and truly integrated, irrespective of its origin - be that a recorded identified voice exchange, a document, financial analysis, e-mail containing relevant information, informing an important business process, or the company's media-rich investor relations circular,” says De Wet.
'Co-opetition'
ONEdotCOM's MD responsible for end-user supplier services, Vaughan Humphrey, says what counts is “co-opetition” or collaboration with the major players in the industry.
“Not being dedicated to a single transmission mechanism means we can mix and match the best of what is available in SA, and provide a unique bouquet specifically customised to our clients' requirement,” he says.
Responding to the suggestion that ONEdotCOM functions more as a reseller/repackager than a carrier, De Wet says: “We are continuously investing to build and own our infrastructure.
“We control the end-to-end operations from the layer one to layer three perspective; this allows us to offer telephone and data communications between points in a region, in one or more countries.
“In certain regions, we will partner with other carriers to make use of their infrastructure via NNI agreements to ensure that we can deliver end-to-end Ethernet services to any region and any country.”
First-tier
According to De Wet, the primary goal for the company is to become a first-tier player in the Southern African region.
MD of ONEdotCOM Telco Willie Olivier says: “As a new telco carrier in the market, the company aims to position itself as a true first-tier player with its own voice correlation platform, cable system or infrastructure, and multiple nodes with international presence.
“This enables the company to provide a truly converged service, economies of scale and 100% redundancy on its networks with an uptime guarantee.”
ONEdotCOM's head office is based in Woodmead, with offices in Durban, Polokwane and Cape Town opening later this year.
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