CENTURION, Gauteng – 20 August 2009 – Data Environments will tap into Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) to increase the access to high-speed telecoms infrastructure at Teraco’s Cape Town data centre.
Teraco operates the only vendor neutral data centre in South Africa with all major carriers and service providers available for its clients. The installation of DFA brings the number of carriers available within Teraco’s data centre to six. DFA secures, builds, owns and maintains carrier neutral, open access, ducting infrastructure, which it leases to telecoms service providers. This infrastructure is called “dark fibre” because the fibre optic cables used by transmission equipment to transmit data via light waves are unlit until a data service provider starts using the cables.
DFA has already laid 115 000 kilometres of fibre in over 860 kilometres of trenches, connecting metropolitan areas in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town since it started rolling out its network in October 2007. The new agreement sees DFA implement fibre links directly into the Teraco data centre’s “meet me” room, allowing quick and easy connectivity for Teraco customers to DFA’s national infrastructure. As both companies subscribe to a carrier neutral model, customers inside Teraco’s data centre can now connect directly to any other customer that has linked in to any part of DFA’s network. “The match of Teraco’s vendor neutral data centre business model with DFA’s competition-neutral, open access infrastructure presented a fantastic business opportunity for both of our companies,” says Gustav Smit, chief executive of DFA. “It is the first fruits of the slow deregulation of telecoms in our country that will finally make South Africa a globally competitive place to do business.
“As a Teraco infrastructure provider, DFA will make it easier for mutual customers to interconnect with each other and their data centres in the Teraco facility, enabling them to run their businesses more effectively.” Lex van Wyk, MD of Teraco, adds: “This partnership perfectly underpins Teraco’s philosophy of unrestricted choice of network and service provider, allowing customers to manage traffic to get better value or performance, while creating an open market for partnerships.
“This partnership clearly shows how a focused, neutral operation that does not lock customers into a choice of carrier, service provider or other services can work with complementary providers to give South African businesses choice, flexibility and maximum value for their money. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with DFA.”
Fibre optic cables transmit high-speed voice, data and video services thousands or millions of times faster, more reliably and more cost-effectively than copper or wireless links.
DFA is the premier wholesale, open-access fibre-infrastructure and -connectivity provider in South Africa. We finance, build, install, manage, and maintain a world-class fibre network to transmit metro and long-haul telecommunications traffic. We started rolling out our fibre network in 2007, and to date, we have deployed over 15,000 km of ducting infrastructure in major metros, secondary cities, and smaller towns. Our network runs with an industry-leading uptime of 99.98%. We lease our secure transmission and backbone fibre infrastructure and provide associated connectivity services to telecommunications operators, Internet service providers, media conglomerates, tertiary education institutions, municipalities, government organizations, and other businesses, large and small, on equal terms. DFA is a Level 3 B-BBEE Contributor on the ICT Sector Codes.
Press contacts
Tribeca PR for DFA
dfa@tribecapr.co.za