Ekinops selected by Bandwidth & Cloud Services Group

BCS is a Pan-African wholesale telecom infrastructure provider with fiber connectivity solutions across Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. It is the region’s premier partner for backhaul data and cloud services to mobile operators and service providers. Throughout its network, BCS estimates that its projects support approximately one-third of all internet capacity by data volume in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda. Customers in these regions account for two-thirds of all data subscribers who rely on BCS’s network for approximately half of their capacity needs.

As part of an ambitious expansion project following years of growth, BCS aims to improve connectivity and reduce latency in the region. After a competitive tender process, which saw Ekinops draw on its experience supporting previous network upgrades, BCS selected Ekinops’ DWDM transport solution for its planned backbone expansion. The project involves long-distance regional optical transport networks capable of 1Tbps (terabit per second) capacity across Africa and urban connectivity upgrades through 44 metro ring deployments offering 10G traffic from Points of Presence (PoP) and towers to the network hub.

“As one of the leading telecoms infrastructure providers in Africa, it is essential that our network along the railroads in Zimbabwe and DRC, as well as planned submarine cables in Lake Tanganyika and Congo River, aligns with current and future trends and demands,” commented John Orutwa, Chief Technical Officer from BCS. “Having worked with Ekinops on our previous major network expansion, we were already aware of their advanced technology, close, partnership-led approach and world-leading expertise. We are excited to work with them again as key partners in our ambitious expansion plans unlocking next-gen connectivity throughout Africa.”

Frank Dedobbeleer, Group Senior Vice President Sales EMEA & APAC at Ekinops, said: “Ekinops is proud to be working with BCS and the telecom ecosystem in Africa to unlock next-gen connectivity and support the continually evolving digital economies throughout the region. Thanks to our comprehensive network backbone solution, BCS is ready to face the future with confidence, equipped with a highly dynamic, flexible, scalable and cost-effective optical transport network.”

Supplying its Ekinops360 optical transport portfolio, Ekinops will increase BCS’ backbone capacity with both single and dual fiber capabilities, aggregating low capacity circuits to high bit rate protocols to deliver speeds ranging from 1Gbps (gigabit per second) to 1 Tbps. The solution also accommodates future demand for backbone capacity increases through FlexRate™ coherent channels, to extend the network’s reach/capacity throughout the region.