Big dark fibre upgrade for Joburg Internet exchange
INX-ZA has announced the completion of a high-speed dark fibre network to improve the resilience and backbone capacity of the multi-site Johannesburg Internet Exchange (JINX).
The organisation said the dark fibre rolled out between the six data centres where JINX is located provided “virtually unlimited” future network capacity.
INX-ZA chair Prenesh Padayachee said that successful digital transformation depended on the infinite bandwidth that dark fibre enabled.
“INX-ZA can now easily enable additional capacity between sites as more peers connect to the JINX peering fabric,” the organisation stated.
The community-run INX-ZA manages South Africa’s only data centre-agnostic and multi-site Internet exchange points, with the overarching objective of keeping Internet traffic local to lower costs and improve latencies.
“Typically, this means that consumers enjoy improved services, and the ISP saves on costs, which are eventually passed on to the consumer,” INX-ZA said.
JINX’s six data centre locations are as follows:
- Dimension Data Parklands
- Teraco Isando
- Xneelo Samrand
- Africa Data Centres Halfway House
- Africa Data Centres Samrand
- Digital Parks Africa Samrand
Launched in June 1996, JINX is Africa’s longest-running exchange point, with an impressive 100% uptime over its 27-year history.
INX-ZA also operates South Africa’s other community-run INXes — the Cape Town Internet Exchange (CINX), Durban Internet Exchange (DINX), and the Nelson Mandela Bay Internet Exchange (NMBINX).
Another of the organisation’s major recent initiatives was a content delivery drive that helped ensure popular streaming content for consumers in Cape Town and Durban was served locally instead of content being backhauled from Johannesburg.
INX-ZA said South Africa’s multi-tenant data centre colocation supply was expected to continue on an impressive growth trajectory, further underpinning the growth in Internet traffic exchanged locally.
“As South Africa’s only multi-site Internet exchange point, all the INX locations are well positioned to support the continued local development of the Internet,” INX-ZA said.
Padayachee added that the unhindered growth of the data centre and INX sectors would make a real contribution to reducing the cost to communicate and help boost the economy.