by AKANI CHAUKE
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – SOUTH Africa’s INX-ZA has selected Nokia to modernise its exchange infrastructure and future-proof internet connectivity for the country’s digital communities.
INX-ZA is South Africa’s internet exchange point division of the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA).
INX-ZA will deploy Nokia’s high performance internet protocol (IP) routing portfolio to offer new 400GE and expanded 100GE services to customers across the country.
As a result, officials said businesses and internet users can now experience faster, more resilient, and future-ready Internet connectivity in South Africa.
Nokia will upgrade INX-ZA’s Internet Exchange Points in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban, beginning with Johannesburg – home to JINX, Africa’s oldest internet exchange point, which has achieved 100-percent uptime since its launch in 1996.
Together, Nokia and INX-ZA will expand JINX from seven to ten data centres by year-end, deploying thirty high-performance platforms in phase one to preserve its industry-leading availability while extending its reach.
The deployment, powered by Nokia’s high-capacity 7250 interconnect routers and service router operating system (SR OS), enables INX-ZA to offer new 400GE and expanded 100GE services for peering partners and Internet service providers (ISPs) – a capability not previously available in the region.
In addition, it will augment the scale and performance of INX-ZA’s backbone to connect to different points of presence (POPs) with 400GE links.
“Upgrading to Nokia’s 400GE-ready infrastructure isn’t just about adding capacity. It’s about reimagining how South Africa connects,” said Nishal Goburdhan, INX-ZA’s General Manager.
The official believes with this modern, energy-efficient platform, INX-ZA can deliver faster, more reliable, and more sustainable interconnection services while maintaining the uptime and performance.
“Nokia’s technology gives us the scale and capability to keep our exchanges at the forefront of global standards and power the country’s digital economy for the future,” Goburdhan said.
Internet exchanges are seen as a critical component of the digital ecosystem, enabling data to be exchanged locally and reducing dependency on expensive international bandwidth. However, many facilities across Africa still operate on aging platforms that lack scalability and efficiency.
“As people are consuming and producing more content and businesses are moving their loads to the cloud, Internet Exchanges are an essential and critical part of digital infrastructure,” said Toni Pellegrino, Nokia Head of South and East Africa Sales Unit, Network Infrastructure.
– CAJ News