by TINTSWALO BALOYI
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – THE South African internet services provider, Cool Ideas, has disclosed plans to launch a dual path deal with the French telco, Orange.
This is part of plans to lower latency and eventually improve user experience.
This comes on the heels of the ISP securing a similar path to the United Kingdom (UK), leveraging the West African Cable Service (WACS) and Equiano.
Cool ideas revealed that in the new year, French telecom, Orange, “will become part of the mix.”
Locally, in order to mitigate impact on the network when one of the national long distance service (NLDs) fails, Cool Ideas recently deployed equipment running multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) on the NLD service between Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.
Based in Johannesburg, Cool Ideas currently services over 50 000 South African users across 35 networks monthly, through its fibre to the home (FTTH), fibre to the business (FTTB), voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and uncapped fixed Long Term Evolution wireless offerings.
The Paul Butschi and Andre Jooste-founded firm also provides free internet access to 309 schools via the organisation’s Cool Schools programme.
Cool Ideas has claimed the title of the fastest internet service provider in South Africa. Holding the top spot on Ookla and Steam for some three consecutive years, the average speed delivered by Cool Ideas is 70 Mbps, compared to the national average of 50 Mbps.
Cool Ideas reports that data speeds reported by Netflix show it tops the leaderboard at 3,36 Mbps over the past six months, with the next service provider at 3,30 Mbps.
“Simplicity is the cornerstone of our strategy,” Duwane Peters, Marketing Manager of the company, said of the company’s success.
“We invest in a more expansive infrastructure, procuring increased bandwidth, and have intentionally avoided costly data tracking systems.”
All Cool Ideas service packages are uncapped.
“This approach allows us to channel our investments into bolstering our network, thereby ensuring consistently high-speed internet for our users,” Peters said.
– CAJ News