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1 September 2014

Telkom’s investment in the upgrade of SAT-3/WASC/SAFE Submarine Cable System enhances customer experience

 
Telkom’s Chief Technology Officer, Alphonzo Samuels, today announced that the company has contributed to the fourth upgrade of SAT-3/WASC/SAFE submarine cable system. “This cable upgrade further addresses the global capacity demands such as fast internet connectivity, data-hungry applications, high-quality video-on-demand and increasing social media usage, thus enhancing customer experience,” said Samuels.
 
SAT-3/WASC cable system has been upgraded from 420 Gb/s in the northern segments to 920 Gb/s and from 340 Gb/s in the southern segments to 800 Gb/s. SAT-3/WASC is currently operated with full in-system protection and the doubling of the capacity continues to position this cable as one of the leaders on the Sub-Saharan African coastline.
 
Offering one of the lowest latency routes from Africa to Europe, this SAT-3/WASC upgrade caters for much-needed high-speed connectivity. With sixteen landing points spread between Europe, Africa and Asia, the SAT-3/WASC/SAFE cables provide access to global markets and footprint, offering customers seamless and diverse connectivity to the rest of the world.
 
Telkom’s participation in this initiative further demonstrates commitment to remain customer-centric and cost-effective by working with the renowned submarine cable consortium, thereby being able to offer premium solutions at reduced costs. Furthermore, through its state-of-the art domestic and global infrastructure and highly-skilled personnel, Telkom offers the benefit of peace of mind and quality while taking care of customers’ needs.
 
Telkom’s extensive experience in the provisioning of submarine cable services in the specialist areas of network administrator, network operations centre and submarine cable procurement and management, has placed the Company at the forefront of the S3WS cable upgrade project. Together with the other consortium members, Telkom has ensured an optimal implementation period that resulted in the upgrade completion in time to meet the ongoing customer desire for increased speed & bandwidth.
 
Telkom’s direct ownership and investment in EASSy, WACS, EIG, S3WS, SMW3 and Columbus-3 cable systems allows it to package solutions using diverse routes to the rest of the world. Additionally, the Company has three key submarine cable gateways at Mtunzini, Melkbosstrand and Yzerfontein which serves as formidable gateway redundancy in South Africa. With Telkom carriers and retailers have a wide choice of digital connectivity.
 
Telkom is proud to be South Africa’s leading provider of ICT wholesale facilities, services and solutions.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Pynee Chetty

Senior Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel:+27 12 642 1716

Mobile: +27 81 389 7874

Email: chettpr2@telkom.co.za

 OR

Leigh-Ann Francis

Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel: +27 12 642 1728

Mobile: +27 81 391 4780

Email: francilm@telkom.co.za

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ABOUT TELKOM:

Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa. We had consolidated operating revenue of R16.8 billion and normalised profit after tax of R1, 683 million for the period ended 30 September 2015. Total assets amounted to R41.9 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R23.5 billion as of 30 September 2015. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R1.4 billion for the period ended 30 September 2015.

As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access lines in service and 1,030,441 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

  • fixed-line retail voice services using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of subscription based value-added voice services and calling plans;
  • fixed-line customer premises equipment rental and sales services both voice and data needs and these include PABX, Computers, Routers, Modems, Telephone handsets and other ancillary equipment;
  • interconnection services, including terminating and transiting traffic from South African mobile operators, as well as from international operators and transiting traffic from mobile to international destinations;
  • fixed-line data services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point-to-point leased lines, ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services, packet-based services, managed data networking services and internet access and related information technology services;
  • Data Centre Operations includes e-commerce, application service provider, hosting, data storage, e-mail and security services;
  • W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G next generation network, including fixed voice services, data services and nomadic voice services;
  • mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through our mobile navbar-brand called Telkom Mobile;
  •  information and communication services including cloud services, infrastructure services, workspace services, global service integration management and hardware and network equipment sales locally, in seven African countries, the UK and Dubai through Business Connexion Group; and
  • other services including directory services, through Trudon (Pty) Ltd, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd.

Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable future for Telkom.  We will lead the provision of converged services in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting people to a better life.