Page 10 - EngineerIt May 2021

ICT – CONNECTING SOUTH AFRICA

Teraco boosts regional interconnection

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with METISS Cable

Teraco, Africa’s largest and most interconnected data centre operator, has become an integral node
to the Meltingpot Indian Oceanic Submarine System (MÉTISS)

he Melting Pot Indian Oceanic Submarine System Technologies to act as the landing party in South Africa,
(MÉTISS) is a fibre optic cable system connecting responsible for the installation of the terrestrial component
TMauritius to South Africa. It consists of a 3 200 km trunk of the METISS cable system and the operational aspects of
from Mauritius to South Africa and branching units to Reunion the system in South Africa.
Island and Madagascar, with a design capacity of 24Tbps. With MÉTISS consortium members having infrastructure
The METISS main cable (‘trunk’) runs more than 3 200 km in both the Teraco Durban (DB1) and Johannesburg (JB1)
from Mauritius to South Africa and splits at branching units data centre facilities, the Indian Ocean Islands have direct
off the main trunk to landing sites in Reunion Island and access to Teraco’s ecosystem of over 300 networks, 130
Madagascar. In South Africa the METISS subsea cable runs IT service providers, 50 global content providers, and the
approximately 538 km (inclusive of Territorial Waters and key global cloud providers, says Michele McCann, head of
Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ)). The system includes a interconnection and peering at Teraco. The availability of a
14 mm to 35 mm diameter subsea cable and enters the South new cable servicing the Indian Ocean Islands region widens
African EEZ (approximately 370 km from the seashore) and the addressable market for content and cloud providers
continues through Territorial Waters (approximately 22 km from in South Africa. It adds new resilience to the existing
the seashore), and onto land until it reaches the Cable Landing telecommunications infrastructure.
Station (CLS) at Pipeline Beach in Amanzimtoti, . MÉTISS provides global telecoms organisations,
The MÉTISS consortium comprises Canal+ Télécom, multinationals and enterprises with interests in the region,
CEB Fibernet, Emtel, Zeop, SRR (SFR) Telma. The with reliable services and capacities to empower their digital
MÉTISS consortium has contracted Liquid Intelligent strategies.

Map of the proposed MÉTISS subsea cable route

EngineerIT | May 2021 | 8