Traditionally, creating a fibre link between geographically distributed offices, branches or locations, has required organisations to pay a significant amount of money per branch office. With MegaWAN from XDSL, enterprises, resellers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can leverage existing infrastructure, effectively establishing a national network without the capital outlay for cost effective, redundant connectivity across the country.

MegaWAN is a Layer 2 data network that utilises XDSL’s existing backhaul to create a flat Local Area Network (LAN) structure that stretches between the three major metropolitans in South Africa. The solution makes use of a full national fibre ring between the three Teraco Data Centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. Additional fibre rings deliver connectivity throughout the metros, while peering agreements and XDSL’s presence in 13 major local Data Centres creates a complete network to all areas of these metros. Customers with a presence in Teraco or any of XDSL’s data centres can make use of this infrastructure to create a national network between the metropolitan hubs, without the need to build their own.

“Essentially, customers use their own connection into any of these data centres to transport data across the country. For example, a customer in Johannesburg has a presence in the Teraco data centre in Isando, with a fibre connection between their office and the data centre. The data is routed to Teraco in Johannesburg, then picked up by the existing network and transported to Teraco in Cape Town, which their Cape Town branch has a connection into. The data is then routed to the Cape Town office from there. Customers pay only for the local connection as well as the needed backhaul portion of the link, making MegaWAN a highly cost effective option,” explains Danie Fourie, Commercial Director at XDSL.

As a private network, MegaWAN enables customers to gain greater control and security over their network for a fraction of the cost of a traditional Multi-Packet Layer Switching (MPLS) network. In addition, MegaWAN provides highly efficient data throughput, with gains of up to 20%, as bandwidth is not lost to TCIP/IP overheads. The full network can be controlled using one core switch, further adding to cost-effectiveness.

The MegaWAN solution makes use a full national ring between the three Teraco data centres, intra-metro fibre rings in the major metros, and a peering agreement with Nap Africa within the cities as well as between them. XDSL also offers additional services, including high speed Internet with full redundancy and access, as well as fibre connectivity from the Data Centre to customer premises. In order to leverage the MegaWAN solution, customers will need to have a presence in one of the Teraco or XDSL Data Centres, as well as their own Autonomous System (AS) number.

“The MegaWAN solution is ideal for resellers, enabling them to offer Internet as a service to their customers without the need for additional capital expenditure. For ISPs, it enables them to offer a more cost effective service by accessing our massive network (access to more than 200 00Kms of fibre), as well as our bandwidth capability and leveraging greater economies of scale. It is also ideal for large, fully national Corporates that require fibre connectivity between their branches. MegaWAN is a cost effective national network solution that offers better control and security, built-in redundancy, reduced overheads and improved service,” Fourie concludes.