Short answer
FirstNet sends international traffic over multi-peer transit at global hubs such as London, New York, Frankfurt and Singapore. It uses several undersea cable systems and reroutes traffic automatically if one is cut.
In detail: Reaching cloud services overseas
Performance to an overseas cloud region depends on where traffic leaves South Africa and how it is routed. Here is how FirstNet handles it:
- Multi-peer transit at hubs such as LINX London, New York, Frankfurt and Singapore. There are more peering points too, such as Amsterdam, Marseille and São Paulo.
- Capacity on seven or more undersea cables, such as WACS, EASSy, SEACOM and 2Africa.
- Automatic rerouting when a cable is cut or a region is congested.
- Direct peering with Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud and major content delivery networks.
On standard business fibre, international contention is capped at 1:4 at most, and only during undersea cable failures. If international cloud performance is critical, Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) gives you a dedicated 1:1 contention on international traffic. DIA peers in hubs such as London, New York, Brazil, Germany, Marseilles and Singapore.
A move to overseas cloud platforms is a common reason to upgrade core sites from broadband to DIA. For those sites, stable international routing matters more than headline speed.
Source: FirstNet Direct Peering with Microsoft & AWS service page →