Vodacom Business launched its Metro-Ethernet Fibre network (Metro E) today, with this fibre connection available immediately to all businesses based in South Africa’s major metropolitan areas.
 
Metro E provides companies with a variety of service speeds ranging from 2 Mbps to 1 Gbps. According to Vodacom this high-speed fibre network allows for greater control over how much bandwidth companies require as well as for easy and rapid transfer of large amounts of data, making it suited for services that require smooth data provisioning such as video conferencing. It is based on Vodacom’s high capacity optical fibre infrastructure, which is centred around Vodacom Business’ Service Hubs located in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban.

To illustrate the capabilities of their new network, Vodacom tested it against former Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton (currently fourth in the driver standings). Hamilton raced around the 4.2 km Kyalami Race Track in Johannesburg in a Mercedes-Benz AMG C63, against a 5.4 GB data capsule that was transmitted across Vodacom Business’ Metro Ethernet fibre network from Midrand to Sandton. Although Hamilton's third lap time (2 minutes) matched the time set by the data capsule, his slower first- (2.11 minutes) and second lap time (2.09 minutes), meant that Metro E was victorious with the best overall race based on average lap times. 

The Metro E network has been laid along routes of large businesses, giving these businesses easy access to the Vodacom Business fibre termination point. Some of the benefits that the businesses will gain from the Metro E network include super-fast connections, which boasts evenly matched upload/download speeds and the option to buy data in increments of 2 Mbps.
 
“Companies are facing increasing bandwidth requirements as they deploy more high-bandwidth applications, such as voice, video and networked storage,” said Ermano Quartero, managing executive of products and services at Vodacom Business. “But in order to deploy these applications, companies need a high-bandwidth, low cost, reliable ‘last mile’ service. Vodacom Business is able to now meet these needs with its Metro E service.”