Fibre optic
by AKANI CHAUKE
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa’s sixth largest city, is to receive a broadband connectivity solution following a partnership between Africa’s prime cable systems company and an information technology solutions provider.
SEACOM is partnering Accelerit Technologies for the first-of-its-kind prepaid offering.
Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) and mini ISPs in Bloemfontein will now be able to access IP Transit at competitive rates and on flexible contract terms.
The success of the new SEACOM-Accelerit offer in Bloemfontein will determine if there are future roll-outs to other areas beyond the biggest metros.
Mandla Ngcobo, Managing Director at Accelerit, said the partnership with SEACOM was mutually beneficial.
He said different partnerships were explored prior to launch.
“Dealing directly with SEACOM, the reliability of their service enabled us to focus on our business of selling solutions instead of continually combating technical issues,” Ngcobo said.
SEACOM and Accelerit’s expansion to Bloemfontein is made possible by SEACOM’s recent acquisition of FibreCo Telecommunications, which has a far-reaching dark fibre network within South Africa.
SEACOM is lighting up FibreCo’s terrestrial routes and will be using FibreCo’s Bloemfontein aggregation node to deliver bandwidth to the city.
“Accelerit really did their homework on the Bloemfontein target market,” said Jason Lloyd, Channel Team Lead at SEACOM.
He said SEACOM had already been impressed with the pay-as-you-go bandwidth product they developed for end users in Johannesburg.
“For anything prepaid to succeed, service levels need to be top-notch, which is something both SEACOM and Accelerit share as a common value,” Lloyd said.
– CAJ News