WIOCC has connected FirstNet Technology Services, a First Technology Group company, to the 2Africa subsea cable system between Durban and Cape Town. FirstNet is the first client, in South Africa or internationally, to be connected to this segment of the cable.
Why a subsea route between Durban and Cape Town matters
Traffic between South Africa’s two largest coastal hubs has traditionally travelled over land. Terrestrial routes are exposed to vandalism, fibre cuts and power outages along the way. Moving this traffic onto a subsea path gives FirstNet a route that avoids those risks, so customers get a more resilient, lower-latency connection between the two cities.
About the 2Africa cable
2Africa is one of the largest subsea cable projects in the world, built by a consortium that includes WIOCC, which is also a fibre-pair owner on the system:
- More than 45,000 km of cable
- 46 landing points in 33 countries across Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan and India
- Designed for resilience, very low latency and very high bandwidth
Ryan Sher, WIOCC Group Chief Operating Officer, describes 2Africa as part of Africa’s digital revolution. He expects faster speeds, better reliability and wider coverage across the continent, with knock-on benefits for economic growth, education, healthcare and social development.
What it means for FirstNet customers
For Sean van Niekerk, General Manager at FirstNet, the connection is about more than buying capacity. FirstNet’s aim is to be a pioneer rather than one more internet provider, and the 2Africa route gives it a robust, resilient, low-latency network to build on. That means smoother collaboration, uninterrupted access to business applications and cloud platforms, and reliable streaming for customers.
FirstNet has spent years building and expanding its enterprise network for customers across every sector, with a particular focus on retail and maritime businesses, whose applications need connectivity that is always on and low in latency. The network now has points of presence in several countries and at internet exchanges.
Because business demand on the network drops in the evenings, FirstNet also asked how home users could benefit from the same infrastructure. That led to a fibre-to-the-home offering built on the FirstNet core network.
Low latency for gamers: UrbanXConnect
UrbanXConnect, another First Technology Group company and one of South Africa’s first dedicated gaming ISPs, uses the FirstNet core network to offer fast, stable fibre across multiple fibre network operators. In gaming, every millisecond counts. UrbanXConnect product manager Kerry-Ann Smit points to the measures that keep lag down:
- Peering agreements with major gaming studios
- Careful prioritisation of routing
- Subscriptions to tools such as ExitLag that improve the route to game servers
A foundation for what comes next
WIOCC sees the FirstNet connection as the start of a new phase of connectivity in the region, with more partnerships and network expansion to follow. For FirstNet customers, it adds a resilient, high-capacity route to the national and international network they already rely on.
Learn more about FirstNet’s national footprint and global reach, carrier-grade ISP infrastructure and all connectivity services.
Source: FirstNet leverages WIOCC 2Africa cable for unprecedented connectivity, WIOCC.