WIOCC Group continues to enhance and extend its unique network, which comprises high-capacity, pan-African terrestrial infrastructure integrated with strategic investments in major international subsea systems serving Africa.

This network has successfully established itself as Africa’s digital backbone, with open infrastructure that underpins delivery of reliable, fully scalable national and international connectivity to cloud operators, content providers, telecommunication companies and internet service providers (ISPs).

This infrastructure has been significantly enhanced over the past several years by our entry into the African data centre market with the launch of Open Access Data Centres (OADC) in 2001, with which we are setting new standards of delivery efficiency, operational excellence, customer experience and sustainability.

Equity investment and funding has been instrumental in enabling us to implement a fast-track rollout of >30 world-class data centres; the first phase in a >US$200 million programme to deploy interconnected, carrier-neutral, open-access data centres across the continent.

We are also the first and only data centre operator in Africa to create a unique core-to-edge architecture proposition, consolidating edge computing, edge data centres and hyperscale connectivity into a single ecosystem.

This enables us to extend the network edge closer to the points of content creation and consumption through delivery of converged open digital infrastructure, as demanded by our clients and needed to expedite the digital transformation of the continent.

From our original model of providing connectivity to cable landing stations and Points of Presence (PoPs) in major cities, WIOCC Group has continued to expand and invest to deliver content ever closer to end users.

In 2022, we made affordable connectivity more widely available across South Africa by expanding our 16Tbps-ready hyperscale national backbone, coastal corridor routes and metro networks and PoPs in major cities.

In Nigeria we are transforming the network infrastructure, deploying over 4,500km of fibre and 84 PoPs, extending our metro fibre network across Lagos and throughout Lagos State, thereby enabling us to reach more clients, not only in the capital of Nigeria, Abuja, but also in central and northern parts of the country.

We are also extending and expanding our connectivity into landlocked countries such as Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Uganda.

We are continually investing to strengthen Africa’s global connectivity and thereby extend Africa’s influence and capabilities. As part of this strategy, in November 2022, WIOCC Group announced a deal with EXA Infrastructure, the largest dedicated digital infrastructure platform connecting Europe and North America.

We will be utilising EXA’s new terrestrial transport route to Lisbon and Sines in Portugal (which connects the Iberian Peninsula to its European network) to support wholesale clients in expanding capacity and boosting network reliability out of Africa.

WIOCC Group has made a strategic investment in a fibre pair on each of two new 140+Tbps subsea systems serving Africa – Google’s Equiano cable on the west coast and the Meta’s 2Africa cable on both east and west coasts. These cables will increase capacity, quality and availability of internet connectivity between Africa and the rest of the world, with our investment ensuring that we are able to continue to maintain the low-cost base and the huge on-net scale needed to provide high-availability services to our clients.

WIOCC was chosen as the landing partner for the Equiano cable in Lagos, which landed in OADC’s flagship Lagos facility in May 2022, and is also landing the 2Africa cable into OADC Durban at Amanzimtoti in South Africa.

With Equiano landed in South Africa and Nigeria, WIOCC’s wholesale capabilities have improved significantly. As a fibre pair owner, we can offer fully upgradable and scalable capacity to businesses across South Africa, Nigeria and neighbouring countries on the fastest route to Europe.

With the development of Africa’s digital economy a significant driving force for the continent’s economic growth, the launch of our data centre business, OADC, represents a major milestone for Africa.

In 2022, the first year of a multi-year investment programme, we have overseen the rapid deployment of >30 facilities, including core data centres in Lagos, Nigeria and Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa, with plans to enter new markets in the coming year, starting with Kinshasa in the DRC in 2024.

Our world-class Lagos and Durban data centres have been chosen to host the Equiano and 2Africa subsea cables, which will expand WIOCC Group’s network offering and enable clients to connect with cloud networks, suppliers and infrastructure suppliers.

We are also building Africa’s edge DC infrastructure. OADC EDGE, our open-access edge data centre infrastructure in South Africa, is the first to be deployed on the continent, integrating hyperscale network with data storage, processing and application hosting in key business locations throughout the country. Benefits for clients are enormous, moving Capex to Opex, supporting network equipment deployment and offering improved application performance from reduced latency and reduced costs.

As a pioneer in the development of Africa’s infrastructure, our vision, local knowledge and unparalleled skills have consistently driven our success. Over the coming years we will continue to invest and adapt to market demands and remain one of Africa’s driving forces in providing interconnected, integrated ecosystems that enable our clients to take advantage of Africa’s increasing opportunities.