Internet Solutions made a quiet announcement that belied its importance, as it confirmed the recent deployment of Infinera’s technology, the company’s Intelligent Transport Network solution, which boasts  the DTN-X packet optical transport networking platform. This is significant for a number of reasons, the first of these being that it marks the company’s entry into the terabit era, and more broadly,  bodes well for South Africa’s – and the African continent’s – competitiveness moving forward on the global stage.

Prenesh Padayachee, the chief technology officer at Internet Solutions elaborated that, with the deployment of the Infinera DTN-X platform, Internet Solutions has a total capacity of 8 Tb/s (terabits per second) on its fibre backbone.

Putting this into a little perspective, he pointed out that 8 Tb/s is more than the entirety of internet traffic in 2005 globally. Giving another picture of the magnitude, he explained that if a user had to stream 1.2 million HD videos down one line, simultaneously, that would amount to 8 Tb/s.

Prenesh Padayachee, CTO at Internet Solutions

Businesses, take note

More particularly, Internet Solutions explained that it had deployed the Infinera DTN-X platform across the company’s South African long distance fibre network. This, it asserted, would grant businesses “the simplicity, scalability, and efficiency” that they required from a fibre network.

According to Padayachee, the deployment of the DTN-X platform could ultimately  help businesses – small and medium enterprises most of all – especially as reliable and high speed connectivity quickly become their businesses’ lifeline.

What’s more, the availability of higher bandwidth at an affordable rate could also open the door to new business models. Padayachee gave an example of Bloemfontein potentially serving as a disaster recovery hub for businesses across the country.   

Additionally, South Africa and the African continent, much like the rest of the world, was witnessing an increasing explosion of video content, which is typically bandwidth hungry. Padayachee added that the deployment of Infinera’s technology would help the company react to changing business demands and requirements, as well as provision bandwidth capacities, faster than before.

"Deploying the first 500 Gb/s super-channels across South Africa with Internet Solutions significantly increases the capacity available to business and consumers in the region.” added Chris Champion, senior vice president, EMEA sales for Infinera.

Chris Champion, senior vice president, EMEA sales. 

First things first

Internet Solutions pointed out that it had a long history of firsts – including being the first to offer dial up subscription in 1993, the first to offer remote internet access using satellite technology in 1994 and now, in the latest first, for South Africa and the African continent as a whole, the first company to deploy 500 GB super channel bandwidth.

“We believe that South Africa’s bandwidth requirements will triple in the next year and the demand for bandwidth intensive applications and services will increase beyond anything that we have seen to date,” he asserted.

Padayachee enthused that with this technology, Internet Solutions would be able to deploy additional bandwidth intensive services such as content distribution services and replication services for disaster recovery, without cost constraints - which he asserted are “critical for businesses wanting to ensure that no data is lost across its servers or network.”

The subtext of Internet Solutions’ announcement though, was that South Africa could, at least from an internet infrastructure point of view, conceivably become in line with the rest of the developed world. Additionally, Padayachee explained that the company viewed internet connectivity – and high speed, broadband connectivity at that – as being one of the essential services (much, we gathered, like the provision of electricity and clean water).

Final thoughts

"Internet Solutions’ selection of an Infinera Intelligent Transport Network solution underscores the value of the Intelligent Transport Network for service providers around the world," added Chris Champion, senior vice president, EMEA sales. "Deploying the first 500 Gb/s super-channels across South Africa with Internet Solutions significantly increases the capacity available to business and consumers in the region,” he added.

It is this last statement that perhaps best explains why Internet Solutions quiet announcement  was so significant, because it leaves South African businesses with the exciting question – what can we do with better broadband connectivity?