Multiple Mbps – at a price
Two new companies have recently opened their doors in South Africa, offering businesses the opportunity to combine broadband lines for increased performance and stability.
ADSL channel-bonding
The first to market was Technology Concepts (TC) whose ADSL channel-bonding solution combines up to 5 ADSL lines to create a high speed link capable of significantly faster upload and download speeds than standard ADSL solutions.
The performance gains using the ADSL channel-bonding solution is significant. In a live demonstration at a recent conference in Sandton TC Managing Director Wayne de Nobrega illustrated a download speed of 10 696 Kbps and an upload speed of 1 128 Kbps to international destinations.
This service however comes at a price. A 2 port system, which channel-bonds two 4 Mbps ADSL lines, costs R1 450-00 per month excluding VAT. This increases to R 1 700-00 for 3 ports, R 2 150-00 for 4 ports and R 2 400-00 for the top-of-the-range 5 port solution.
Users of this system must also purchase Internet bandwidth from TC, and prices range from R 1 340-00 (ex VAT) for 10 GB to R 11 260-00 (ex VAT) for 100 GB.
Router clustering
Another option for medium and large enterprises is router clustering which ‘enable high-speed data transfer through multiple lines, multiple ISPs, and backbones over WANs with seamless re-assembly of data streams.’
This technology can bond up to 32 WAN connections at once, with entry level products promising speeds of up to 155Mbps. It is technology independent which means that it can bond any broadband service and does not rely on ISP cooperation.
Through a FatPipe device, a company can combine its ADSL or Diginet connection with HSDPA from Vodacom or MTN, WiMax or VSAT connection for significantly increased Internet speeds as well as dynamic and automatic failover of lines should an ISP service or WAN component or line fail.
These products have successfully been tested with up to 14 WAN connections and handle up to 750Mbps throughput. The products offer inbound and outbound load balancing and redundancy.
FatPipe and Kinetek have forged a partnership to bring this service to South Africa, aiming to address the South African business community’s collective concerns about the effects of the country’s unstable and slow Internet/WAN infrastructure.
“Africa is still largely plagued with poor telecommunications and lack of professional service providers,” said Neil Lerm, IT Director of Kinetek. “We find a tremendous need for solutions that provide reliability, speed and security for Internet and other Wide Area Network connections for businesses to thrive here. FatPipe is the perfect fit due to ease of use and flexibility of its products,” he said.
According to Werner Kruger from Kinetek the unit pricing to the end client ranges from around $3800 (R30 919) to $21500 (R174 935). Kruger points out that the units are customized to the client’s needs and may include add-ons like QoS and failover power units.
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