22 October 2009

AFRICA . INX SET TO BREAK TELECOMS MONOPOLY IN SA

Submitted by: Jackie Elliott
{pp}AFRICA . INX, South Africa’s first and only independent network exchange, has announced its official launch.

“Say goodbye to a historical era of telecommunications monopoly and welcome to freedom of choice, lower rates and independence”, says Eduard du Plessis, CEO, AFRICA . INX.

AFRICA . INX is a new wholesale business which is completely independent and has no link or ownership with any of the existing incumbent telco operators. Its objective is to provide the key underlying infrastructure to enable the retail ISPs to gain low cost access to the Internet and other essential services or networks. This will in turn enable them to bring low cost broadband to the South African users, together with a wide range of converged services, such as VoIP.  Due to the company’s business model and rate card policy, the playing field is levelled, giving medium and smaller ISPs the same low cost access to the Internet that has been enjoyed historically only by the larger Tier 1 ISPs.

AFRICA . INX is buying bandwidth at large scale volumes and then reselling to many ISPs in smaller increments (minimum entry point is 4Mb with 2Mb upgrade increments) at low margins. Rates of more than 50 percent less of what they are currently paying are expected. AFRICA . INX is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ensync Network Solutions (Pty) Ltd, and also offers access to a wide range of converged services, such as VoIP. Other services include international and local Internet / IP transit, international and local Internet peering, international and local NNI (Network to Network Interface or Interconnect), ADSL wholesale IP Connect, and metro fibre access.

AFRICA . INX has no legacy of old infrastructures and no lock-in to fixed contracts and old prices. It can, therefore, put together a set of services which exploit these new, much lower cost transmission infrastructures and have blended together the best options possible. AFRICA . INX will only sell on a wholesale basis to other ISPs and licensed telco operators (ECNS and ECS licensees) and will not compete in the retail market. AFRICA . INX is also assisting ISPs in obtaining their own ASNs (Autonomous System Numbers) and obtaining their own private address space through AfriNic, the African regional internet registry which allocates IP address space and ASNs.

The company is headed up by Eduard du Plessis, CEO and majority shareholder of Ensync, and Mike Brierley, founder and former CEO of MTN Network Solutions. “We both have extensive experience in the IT industry and we are fully aware of the degree to which many smaller ISPs are oppressed by the few large operators that dominate the market. It is our intention to break this monopoly by making Internet access easily and cheaply available to the smaller ISPs in order for them to gain independence and pass that saving onto the consumer,” says du Plessis.

“The telco market has changed significantly over the last year with full de-regulation, the arrival of Seacom and the laying of metro fibre, this has resulted in a drop in long haul transmission prices. However, the smaller ISPs and, ultimately consumers, are not seeing immediate benefits. AFRICA . INX is changing this.” The company plans to introduce a new level of competition into the market, and unlock the demand for broadband, growing South Africa from its current low internet base, to become a truly wired and on-line nation. The company was launched to customers and the media in Rosebank, Johannesburg on October 20, 2009

Enquiries:
Eduard du Plessis
CEO AFRICA.INX
Tel: 0860 77 0860
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Web: www.africainx.net

Mike Brierley
Director - Strategy
AFRICA.INX
Tel: 0860 77 0860
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Web: www.africainx.net