EOH lights National 10 Gbps on Fibraco

by Stuart Hardy, Business Unit Manager of EOH’s Carrier and Network Solutions Division

EOH Network Solutions, a licensed telecommunications company and division of EOH, has established one of the first 10 Gbps services to go live over the recently deployed Fibraco network between Gauteng and Cape Town.

The Fibraco fibre network project has been highly anticipated over the last 18 months, as it is expected to bring much needed competition on national long haul telecommunications infrastructure, and as a result, lower cost.

Telkom fibre network remains primary

While this will support new initiatives for EOH, it will not replace the company’s current national services on Telkom. EOH Networks’ primary national network, which supports the networks of some of the largest companies in the country, will remain Telkom, and Fibraco will act as a secondary route.

For me, Telkom’s national fibre network still represents the highest level of quality and engineering available on national routes in South Africa. And while it comes at a premium, it allows us to feel confident around national service delivery. Because Fibraco is so new, we are cautiously optimistic on how we incorporate this product into our network.

How we’ll use the Fibraco network

There are several initiatives where this 10 Gbps capacity will be used, which will support other important strategies within the group. We are planning to use this additional capacity to drive some of our products in the market, including national replication between data centres, cloud service delivery to Cape Town, and national backhaul of SAT 3 capacity. And some of our larger enterprise clients will be extending their LANs using VPLS between JHB and Cape Town at STM1 level (155 Mbps).

Proving L2 or VPLS services over this link for enterprise can considerably reduce the cost of national transit compared to MPLS.

Stuart Hardy has been in the ICT industry since 1997, has been in the Telecommunications industry since 1997, intimately involved in product development, operations and product marketing roles. He has held Executive level positions in some of the largest Operators in South Africa and has founded and driven two successful start-up companies in the Mobile data and Wireless networking spaces. Today, Stuart is a Divisional Director for EOH in their Telecommunications sector.