Seacom launches high-speed fibre services for major metros along the N1

Enterprise connectivity provider Seacom has completed its first phase rollout of services along the N1 route in South Africa, connecting Johannesburg, Bloemfontein and Cape Town.

The rollout follows Seacom’s 100% acquisition of FibreCo earlier in 2019.

The N1 route traverses the spine of South Africa and serves as the backbone for both current and future undersea cable systems which land on the west and east coasts, Seacom said.

It connects major public cloud providers to South Africa’s metros, and enables fully redundant high-speed ring protection around the African continent.

According to Seacom, its next step will be to increase capacity on its network to reach beyond major metros and into smaller metros in South Africa.

“Capacity will be added to other key national routes, interconnecting Johannesburg, Bloemforntein, Durban, East London and Kimberly in the next phase of the rollout,” it said.

The services now available along this route now include end to end ‘express routes’ connecting major metros to major data centres, national long-distance services, as well as last-mile metro and
town connectivity.

Upon initial activation, Bloemfontein and Worcester will immediately benefit from 100 Gbps connectivity speeds, with Colesberg, Beaufort West, Laingsburg and Touswriver connecting at 10 Gbps, Seacom said.

“This will enable the provision of competitive business connectivity solution to these towns which, in the past, had limited access to high capacity Internet and cloud service options. The second phase of the N1 Light Up project will see additional towns connected along the route,” it said.

Read: Seacom acquires FibreCo