SOUTH Africa’s telecoms market is still growing strongly, making it really attractive to international Telcos and service providers that are looking to grow their client bases. To facilitate their entry into this market, Jasco is launching an Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering through NewTelco SA, its carrier neutral data centre solutions provider and joint venture with Germany-based NewTelco GMBH.

“Internationally, markets for telco services are maturing. In the US, Europe and Asia, Telcos and service providers with sophisticated products – think cloud, voice, data, security, IoT, analytics, content and infotainment – are facing increasing competition in a crowded market. They need new markets for proven products. Sub-Saharan Africa, a fast-growing emerging market with more Fibre to the Home and to Businesses (FTTH and FTTB) being rolled out daily, offers opportunity. However, to enter this market they face a number of infrastructure, regulatory and business challenges,” says Eckart Zollner, business development manager at Jasco.

Regulatory requirements include a stipulation that they must offer their services from an in-country data centre if they want to operate locally. There is also privacy (POPI Act) and other legislation that they must comply with. This means that to enter this market, they either need to build their own infrastructure or partner locally with a service provider able to deliver their services.

“NewTelco’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering provides them with exactly what they need – the infrastructure, support and reliability they need to offer their services to customers with the assurance that they comply with key security and privacy legislation.”

The NewTelco SA IaaS offering for international carriers is highly scalable, catering to companies offering services from tens of thousands of customers to millions of customers. It includes servers, storage, co-location, local and global interconnects with other ISPs and Telcos, as well as backhaul, distribution and operations- and business support systems (customer onboarding, billing and administration).

The IaaS offering is backed by NewTelco SA’s highly skilled network and services management team, located in South Africa, Africa and globally. Says Zollner: “We are able to assist carriers and services providers with test infrastructure for proof of concept initiatives, as well as to localise solutions.
NewTelco SA’s IaaS offering is built on global market experience. “In addition to our large data centre in South Africa, NewTelco has a strong presence across Europe, serving international carriers. It has also recently begun offering services out of data centres in Kenya to facilitate the establishment of a carrier community in East Africa, as more services are rolled out to that region,” notes Zollner.

Zollner believes the entry of international players in the local market over the next three years will bring welcome competition as well as present significant opportunity for local players to partner with successful global service providers.