Since the mid 2000’s ICT organisations have been discussing the
importance and the determinant role of infrastructure sharing in the
development of ICT markets in Africa. Unfortunately it has not been enough and
while it led to many organisations working on the concept, reality is that the
open access approach has not been fully embraced, nor is it completely
understood.
“The reality is that
shared infrastructure is a significant enabling mechanism to stimulate
broadband access in South Africa. If sub-Saharan Africa wants to ensure its
competitiveness, we need to be decisive and have a clear-cut plan to fully
embrace and utilise an open access approach.”
Open access is a disruptor, and one that will ultimately lead to
better business and value for end users. Open access and a shared
infrastructure approach is one of the most progressive ways for Africa to grow.
Teraco has reached the perfect point of maturity where the market is ready
to embrace open access. Having grown its client base to over 300, there is now
a proliferation of service providers and all these clients can utilise the
ecosystems within Teraco. Everyone is connected and it’s all through an open
access model. This is very important for transformation for the economy and for
the continent.
A platform for growth
Through an open access model companies can also deploy technologies
quicker. Sharing can give companies greater leverage and a more efficient and
rapid deployment of newer technologies. The cost savings to be made from
infrastructure sharing also enables companies to reallocate their competencies
and capital on the development of their core business. This is especially the
key to success in a competitive and cost conscious market.
The biggest factor in
Teraco’s favour is also its key differentiator – the fact that Teraco offers a vendor-neutral
and technology-independent environment.
It is also something that is critical to its success. The cloud is a key
driver in the current trend towards outsourcing as the modern CIO seeks a total
solution and migration path. In order to ease the migration pain, CIOs tend to
look for a one-stop shop provider, but this, inevitably, runs the risk of
vendor lock-in.
Teraco is able to solve
these challenges in stages for the CIO. The initial move to the data centre
environment will ensure that efficiencies are gained, after which the next
stage sees its Africa Cloud eXchange connecting the CIO with other parties that
will help the company migrate into the cloud as he sees fit. In effect, Teraco
offers an ecosystem that will enable the CIO to obtain advice and even proof of
concept offerings from other Teraco customers. This ecosystem is another key differentiator.
Offering strategic
benefits, the Teraco ecosystem delivers industry-specific assistance. This is
because as businesses of a certain type move into the Teraco data centre, a
core ecosystem develops around them as they encourage customers or suppliers of
theirs to also join the data centre.
“Teraco effectively only sells one thing, which is its
data centre environment. However, the stickiness of the benefits that comes
with this, encompassing everything from improved latency and connectivity to
cost-efficiencies and managed services, coupled with its neutrality and this
growing ecosystem is what continues to make Teraco a service provider of
choice.”
Connecting Africa
Interconnection and
peering - secret to success
There is an estimated
ten million square metres of data centre space around the world and this is
expected to increase by 40 percent within the next two years. It’s obvious that
data centre outsourcing is not just thriving, but growing exponentially.
“Data centre owners have realised that they need to move
towards an outsourced option,” .
It is widely understood
that every single data centre provider must offer generators and the ubiquitous
uninterruptable power supply (UPS). So while power failures are driving more
enterprises to outsource their data centres, that is not what is sending them to
Teraco. To understand why clients come to Teraco, you need look no further than
the ‘open’ philosophy, which limits the cost of interconnection and enables
peering and fosters co-operation between companies that would otherwise never
have considered working together.
Teraco is a
vendor-neutral operator; it has no vested interest in getting customers to use
its network. Instead, the company has all the major local and international
operators as well as the various undersea cables coming through its data centre.
This means Teraco focuses
on saving the customers money and helping them to make money. They do this by
making interconnection as cost-effective as possible.
So if a customer
decides to move from one telco to another, it’s as simple as unplugging the
cable from the old service provider and plugging it into the new one.
In 2012, NAPAfrica was
launched. It is a nonprofit organisation
fully funded by Teraco with the goal of bringing content into Africa. It’s
designed to overcome the long-haul connections and resultant high latencies of
the past, by bringing international content vendors closer to the local market.
NAPAfrica is designed
to cut out the middleman by taking the client directly from the network
provider to the content provider. This improves both resilience and latency by
allowing customers to access content via a local exchange.
The next step is to
open up the Southern African Development Community (SADC) nations to the world.
NAPAfrica is designed not only to reduce costs locally, but across the entire Sub-Saharan
region, enabling these markets to access international content at prices that
are no longer exorbitant.
Many of the landlocked
African nations have also struggled with the political and regulatory
challenges around crossing borders. Thanks to the fact that some of the large
carrier clients have cross-border licences, these countries can now access
NAPAfrica immediately, which will no doubt have a massive impact on the
businesses in these countries. They are now finally getting their chance to truly
join the global community.
Building Africa’s biggest data centre
Many local enterprises
are not investing in building new data centres. There has been a distinct shift
towards handing the data centre environment over to experts and letting them
take care of business, like the demand for 99.999 percent uptime. Teraco will
double the size of the existing facilities by the end of the year. The new data
centre will offer 5 000m2 of new operational space and will provide 10mVA of
continuous power. Completion of this new phase will mean that Teraco has a
total infrastructure footprint of some 30 000m2, of which 10 000m2 will be
operational space. In addition, the total power supplied will be in the region
of 16mVA, which is the equivalent of the energy needs of 30 000 households. The
new facility will provide current and future operational space at a total
ten-year investment of around R1 billion.
“Teraco has a total infrastructure footprint of some 30
000m2.”
With global outsourcing
really beginning to take off, Teraco is ideally positioned to capitalise on
this trend. In fact, certain issues specific to the South African market are
driving customers to the company at an even more rapid rate than in other parts
of the world. Thanks to peering, Teraco’s customers have become significant
enough to make the large international content players interested in dealing
with them as a community.
Teraco’s mission is to
break down barriers and foster co-operation between companies that would
otherwise never have considered working together. Teraco provides the platform
for true strength in numbers.
The world connects
here.
