Open Access Data Centres (OADC) is set to deploy new edge data centres across South Africa, in Pietermaritzburg, New Germany, Mount Edgecombe, Beaufort West, Paarl, George, Kimberley, East London, Brits.
OADC is a data centre venture first launched by the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) in 2021. WIOCC, formed in 2008, is an African wholesale network firm, which is part of several network cable systems, including the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), Europe India Gateway (EIG), West Africa Cable System (WACS), Telecom Egypt North (TE North), South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5), and the Facebook-led 2Africa cable systems.
OADC works in both hyperscale and edge deployments, and expects to reach an interim target of 26 live open access data centres in South Africa by August 2022. These OADC edge data centres will offer colocation, rooftop access, and high-speed network interconnectivity between facilities at up to 100Gbps on multiple routes, to maintain network diversity.
OADC will also be continuing rollout into key connectivity hubs within South Africa, opening new 2-3MW, Tier 3 OADC facilities in Johannesburg and Cape Town in the third quarter of 2022.
Cost-Efficient Extension of Network Reach
OADC CTO Robert Wright affirmed his support for the expansion, saying that “we are continuing to expand OADC EDGE with new facilities so that 5G operators, ISPs, and fibre operators can cost-efficiently extend their network reach into even more locations.”
Thus, OADC’s consolidation of edge computing, edge data centres, and hyperscale connectivity within a single ecosystem is beneficial for its customers, as it allows them to extend their reach into new markets, and seize business growth opportunities.
In addition, OADC edge delivers latency improvements by enabling content to be served locally and pre-processing large volumes of critical data at the edge before being forwarded to larger facilities, optimising backhaul expenditure. All these features are set to enhance end-users experience.
Wright added that “we provide them with secure hosting of their network equipment in remote locations – our sites are fully monitored by our 24/7/365 Network Operation Centre (NOC) – as well as facilitating roof-top access for siting mobile antennae and supporting their high-speed connectivity requirements between data centres.”
In an earlier press release from May 2022, OADC noted that 17 0.5MW edge data centres were already live across South Africa, and affirmed that it would have ‘more than 100’ in operation by the end of 2022.
This rollout of edge data centres represents the largest deployment of open-access data centres on the African continent.
“Connectivity and Innovation” is a sub-category under the awards category “Outstanding Data Center Projects” for this year’s W.Media Asia-Pacific Cloud & Datacenter Awards. Thinking of nominating or sponsoring? Visit our Awards Page for more information. Nominations are open until 31st July.
