Telecom Namibia connect to German platform to improve customer experience
Telecom Namibia has joined forces with German Internet provider Deutscher Commercial Internet Exchange (De-CIX) and New Telco SA, a Jasco Group company, to establish international access points in South Africa and Namibia to the German Internet exchange (DE-CIX). This comes on the back of a recent move by Telecom Namibia in partnership with New Telco SA to establish Points of Presence (PoPs) in South African and European communication hubs last year. The access points will connect to the De-CIX Apollon platform, the world’s largest Internet Exchange, providing direct access for Namibia and South Africa to more than 550 networks connected to the De-CIX node. Jasco will provide the physical platform to enable this interconnection. The establishment of this Internet Exchange is expected to deliver multiple benefits to customers of Telecom Namibia and to the economy of the region as a whole. “We are very excited about the partnership with New Telco SA which enabled Telecom Namibia to interconnect its PoPs to the world’s largest internet exchange, the DE-CIX. This interconnection will provide us with the ability to provide a speedy, reliable and robust connectivity to European digital ecosystem and beyond. It also dramatically improved routing efficiency and the quality of the Internet experience for end-users,” says Isak Ouseb, Senior Manager: Product Management at Telecom Namibia. “Our partnership with New Telco SA is a pioneering step in connecting Africa to the world, removing the reliance on third parties to connect internationally and driving down the cost of communications for the continent. This is just the first step in revolutionising telecommunications in Namibia. Further phases, such as additional PoPs and the extension of our national infrastructure will enable us to further extend these services,” Ouseb added. Telecom Namibia said the establishment of these access points will create an optimal enabling environment for exchanging local, regional and international Internet traffic, facilitating Namibia’s vision of becoming the ICT hub in the West African region.
It will also allow for more efficient use of available infrastructure and capabilities, and will support the building of centralised infrastructure for content localisation. Other benefits include substantial cost savings for network operators through a reduction in long-haul traffic costs, better resiliency and security of network infrastructure, massive reduction in latency and a reduced risk of outages, resulting in improved customer experience in Namibia and the region.
The three-party agreement between New Telco SA, Telecom Namibia and De-CIX was signed in August 2013 and the interconnect has now been fully implemented effective from the beginning of September, enabling Telecom Namibia to begin rolling out new services and solutions to its customers.
