18 September 2005
Jacques Rautenbach, General Manager - Africa Services for IS, says; “The solution has been designed to provide first tier IP solutions to multinationals and corporate organizations in Africa with service quality and SLAs (service level agreements) equivalent to those already offered by IS locally in South Africa. The service model takes IS’ well established access, MPLS and value-added service model to Africa. This enables companies with a global footprint to extend their WAN infrastructure into Africa over a common medium, managed by a single vendor.”
The Africa core network incorporates satellite and (where viable) terrestrial connectivity with IP enhancements that negate the performance issues associated with IP over satellite. The network is designed to carry voice, video and data and is ideally suited for voice and ERP systems. The customer solution is independent of third party Telcos in Africa which allows IS to manage the solution end-to-end. The chosen network technologies are used extensively in Africa today by global organisations for voice communication and access to global ERP systems where IS can offer voice quality superior to that provided by the in-country Telco.
“Satellite services, designed correctly, afford customers reliably, scalability and economics that no other medium can provide in Africa today. Essentially we are providing Africa-based companies and branch offices with a robust and reliable world-class service, excellent coverage over Africa, with the required management and value-added services that we today offer all our corporate customers in South Africa,” says Rautenbach.
The network terminates on the IS MPLS network node in Germany and MPLS traffic can be carried anywhere in the world via IS’ global interconnect agreements. The service compliments IS’ current MPLS offering and is open to any company requiring managed communication services in Africa.
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