XDSL offers wholesale Internet for ISPs
Having just extended its data centre by 800m2, local Internet Service Provider (ISP) XDSL is now also expanding its service offering and client base, offering wholesale Internet access to local Internet Service Providers with Electronic Communication Services (ECS) and Electronic Communication Network Services (ECNS) licenses. The draw card: competitive pricing, quality service, and exceptional ease of doing business. These are essential ingredients for fast growing ISPs who want flexible and fast access to well-priced bandwidth with reliable throughput that will allow them to deliver on their own service promises to clients.
The XDSL data centre is carrier neutral, offering ISPs dedicated throughput with 1:1 contention.
Says Danie Fourie, director at XDSL: “XDSLs primary link is on the West African Cable System (WACS) with full failover on the SAT3 cable. Our Centurion data centre is connected to all of the major fibre infrastructure rings in South Africa. In addition to the wholesale products for ISPs, we also offer carrier-neutral co-location services, disaster recovery, hosted services and super-fast broadband fibre Internet connectivity.
“With our wholesale Internet offering we are targeting smaller ISPs, offering pricing that is competitive with that of mid-tier wholesalers. The big win for our customers is, however, our customer service policy, which is geared toward bringing smaller players on board fast to take up the additional capacity in our data centre. It is certainly going to provide them with some relief from dealing with bigger Internet wholesalers.”
When it comes to accessing wholesale broadband, smaller ISPs in South Africa need to deal with a lot of red tape and jump through a number of hoops, with bigger players taking priority. “Slow provisioning can be debilitating, affecting the speed with which ISPs can expand and launch services,” says Fourie. “XDSL’s customer service ethic is designed to deliver the goods fast. Our message is: we listen to our customers and we give you the agility you need to grow your business.”
XDSL is very aware of what it takes to enter new markets and excel, having expanded its own business exponentially over the last three years. “XDSL was the first ISP to launch a 25, 50 and 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) broadband fibre offering in South Africa, the first to offer its clients a hosted, fully managed, enterprise grade PABX running on a Diginet line and most recently, the first to include a free Internet link in the data centre for clients who subscribe to its fibre broadband offering and collocation,” s Fourie.
“Our goal is to remove barriers to entry and open up the telecoms service provisioning sector in South Africa to create a more competitive environment – one in which our corporate and service provider clients will thrive. With our ‘firsts’ we are creating a reputation as a leader in this sector. We want our customers to be winners too, because when they win, we win.”
Information box: ECS and ECNS licenses
The Electronic Communications Act provides for two types of telecommunications licence: an Electronic Communications Services (ECS) licence, and an Electronic Communication Network Services (ECNS) licence.
· The ECNS licence gives a service provider the right to roll out and operate physical telecommunications infrastructure such as telephone lines or cellular masts and antennas. Effectively, this means that an ECNS licence holder has the same right to ‘self-provide’ its own network infrastructure as the incumbent operators such as MTN, Vodacom, and Telkom have always had.
· The ECS licence gives a service provider the right to provide services over its own or another company’s telecom infrastructure.
Source: Wireless Access Providers Association, http://www.wapa.org.za.
For more information, visit www.xdsl.co.za
