China Telecom Global joins African data centre community

Details: James Barton; Category: Data Centres & Networks; 21 June 2013; 5076 views

China Telecom Global is now offering services from Teraco’s vendor-neutral South African data centre, allowing it to deliver services across the country as well as link with other service providers and carriers in Africa. The company is a subsidiary of China Telecom, the largest fixed-line and third largest mobile provider in China.

Vendor-neutral data centres are not owned or operated by a carrier or service provider, not do they do not provide any telco- or internet-specific services. This allows any business entity to sell services to others without competing with the data centre where they co-locate.

Lex van Wyk, chief executive officer of Teraco Data Environments, says: “China Telecom’s presence in the data centre opens up exciting business opportunities. Our clients now have the opportunity to connect freely with service providers and carriers in Asia, providing local businesses direct access to a whole new market of consumers. Further to this, the availability of additional routes builds resilience in the networks available at Teraco.”

Mr Xiaofeng Deng, Chief Executive Officer of CTG, added that the partnership would “strengthen our gateway position for connecting the MEA (Middle East and Africa) region and Asia”, adding that it provided China Telecom with access to “all submarine cable systems, significant networks as well as national and international carriers in Africa.”

According to Van Wyk, there will always be challenges in broadening the African horizon. “Until recently, one of the main challenges affecting Africa, was connectivity out of Africa, which was largely reduced when all the undersea cables landed.” He says terrestrial cable is now the big hurdle. “We’ve got all this undersea capacity, way more than we can actually use right now, but the problem is getting that to consumers throughout the continent. CTG joining Teraco’s data centre community contributes to enhancing the gateway to Africa,” he concluded.