MyBroadband writes about Teraco

February 9, 2010

Teraco DC: Telkom, Neotel, Vodacom, Cell C in one place

Teraco plans to spend another R250-million on top of its already R100-million data centre investment; offers free peering point

Teraco, a vendor neutral data centre provider, opened their first facility in the Great Westerford Building in Cape Town early last year. This was followed by the launch of their Johannesburg Data Centre in Isando last month.

Teraco currently has 430 square metres of data centre space in Cape Town and 500 square metres in Johannesburg, but is extending both the Cape Town and Johannesburg data centers to 1430 square metres and 3800 square metres respectively. The company is further set to build a data centre in Durban of around 1000 square metres.

Business
According to Teraco MD Lex van Wyk the company has already invested R100-million in their data centre projects, and plans to spend another R250-million in future. With an increasing competitive local data centre market margins are getting smaller and potential clients are approached by numerous providers, but Van Wyk remains confident that their business model remains sound.

According to Van Wyk their Cape Town data centre, which has already sold 75% of its capacity, is already EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) positive. The Teraco MD added that their Johannesburg data centre has sold around 90% of its capacity already, with key clients like Cell C.

Van Wyk added that while numerous telecoms providers are increasingly trying to increase their data centre market share in South Africa - including Telkom with its Cybernest offerings, Vodacom Business and Neotel – their value proposition of 99.999% guaranteed uptime and true vendor neutrality makes Teraco attractive to many providers.

Connectivity hub
Cell C recently announced that it has appointed Teraco Data Environments to fulfill its data centre requirements in support of its rollout of its new R5bn nationwide 4G network, and Van Wyk said that this is a good example of the value of a vendor neutral data centre.

Cell C would most likely have been hesitant to host its services in a competitor’s data centre, but Teraco made it possible for Cell C to invest in their network and outsource their data centre needs to them. Van Wyk said that Cell C acquired over 200 square metres of data centre floor space in the Teraco Johannesburg and Cape Town facilities.

Van Wyk said that most large telecoms companies already have points-of-presence in the Teraco data centres, including Telkom , Neotel, Vodacom, T-System, Africa INX, ECN, DFA, Web Africa and Cell C. Noteworthy absentees include MTN and Internet Solutions. Van Wyk said that while MTN proves to be a challenging company to deal with, he is confident that Internet Solutions and Vox Telecom will join other providers in the near future.

Free peering point
Good news for local providers looking for an independent peering point - which compliments ISPA’s JINX and CINX - is that Teraco is sponsoring a free peering point called NAPAfrica. NAPAfrica provides for a carrier neutral Layer 2 Internet exchange point (IXP) in the Southern African region, providing high-capacity multimegabit links (from Fast Ethernet to Gigabit Ethernet) between the various global and local network operators.

Van Wyk said that they are sponsoring the hosting space and the equipment for the Internet exchange point, and that the service will be free to any provider with a point of presence in the Teraco data centres. Companies without a Teraco POP will be charged a ‘port fee’ if they want to peer at NAPAfrica.

Teraco will however not manage the peering exchange and have outsourced this task to the Internet exchange specialists NetSumo.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/11402.html