Market Trends

The South African telecommunications regulatory environment has entered an eagerly awaited phase of change.

Driven by the increasing frustration of an industry with a monopolistic fixed line incumbent, mobile operators have been forced to pursue self-provisioning options. Similarly the industry is also frustrated with the high prices of fixed line access services and excessively long installation times. This single supplier has also created an additional risk as redundancy from two independent suppliers cannot be achieved.

For these reasons network service providers are forced to look at self provisioning, either wirelessly or in the fixed line environments.

The Challenges and Opportunities Faced by the Market

In the corporate access services market there is very high demand for high-speed internet and VPN access services. This, coupled with the demand for services that can be installed in 4 to 6 weeks and the requirement for alternative solutions or redundancy requirements has meant that companies are looking either for a new primary source of network connectivity or they are looking to supplement their existing provider with services from another fixed line supplier in order to improve availability levels and service delivery.

Overview of the Solution

Business Challenges / Opportunities

Companies are currently faced with the following challenges:

• Single supplier of fixed line services – the incumbent telecoms provider
• High prices of fixed line services from the incumbent
• Limited service offerings and choice
• Lack of alternatives of carrier grade connectivity for redundancy purposes
• Excessively long service installation times for fibre services from the incumbent (9-12 month installation periods are common)

• Companies now have a secondary / alternative supplier of fixed line services, via the MTN NS Metro Ethernet product set
• The MTN NS Metro Ethernet product set is very competitively priced and offers an economically viable service to corporate companies
• Companies have a choice of three connectivity options and multiple sub-rate bandwidth options between 2Mbps and 1Gbps
• The MTN NS Metro Ethernet products offer carrier class connectivity options to clients for either primary, secondary or redundant connectivity requirements
• The installation time for services to clients on the pilot fibre ring will be between 6-12 weeks

• Customers now have an end-to-end solution from a single supplier, MTN NS, with a Service Level Agreement stipulating uptimes on the entire network
• We offer access to MTN NS’ full range of corporate products and services. This allows customers to bundle VPN, Internet, Hosting, VoIP and Mobile access services via the Metro Ethernet product
• Customers have a greater choice of bandwidth options which are flexible and rapidly upgradeable
• We provide customers with products and solutions that are innovative and competitive in the market
• MTN NS’ network model is based on multiple vendors which allows us to cater for companies’ unique requirements. This ensures that we have best of breed components in the network.
• MTN NS’ products and solutions are designed to provide companies with the highest level of performance and reliability
• MTN NS is responsible for the entire implementation of the product/solution which ensures that project risks are diminished and milestones are met

• Choice - alternative last mile service
• Scalability – access bandwidths are easily scaled to suit client requirements
• Access - ability for clients to use the full range of our corporate product offering
• Availability – the Metro Ethernet services offered by MTN NS will be deployed in specified Metro areas to provide high density service coverage
• Service flexibility – there are multiple sub-rate bandwidth options with three connectivity options for clients to choose from
• Competitively priced – the pricing is market related, relative to the current fibre service offerings
• Expertise – MTN NS has highly skilled engineers with extensive networking and fibre optic experience to call upon
• Security – the security inherently associated with the IP / MPLS core will apply to these access services
• SLA – the Metro Ethernet service will be covered by a specific SLA with uptime, jitter, latency and packet loss guarantees

• Ethernet Private Lines (EPL)
• Virtual Private Lines (VPL)
• Ethernet MPLS Access
• Ethernet Internet Access
• Ethernet VPN Access

• Fixed line operator providing independent leased line services
• Outsourced solution – managed by MTN Network Solutions
• Fast—up to 1 Gbps on demand
• Scalable from 2Mbps to 1Gbps
• Easy-to-manage, create as many VLAN's as you need (Optional Extra)
• Resilience, provided by multiple routes (Optional Extra)
• Economical

• Multipoint Layer2 VPNs
• Transparent LAN services
• Multicast networks

• Multiple offices share total bandwidth purchased
• Efficient sharing of bandwidth between branches
• Easy-to-manage, create as many VLANs as you need (Optional Extra)
• Resilient, provided by multiple routes (Optional Extra)
• Economical as you buy bandwidth on-demand

1. Ethernet MPLS Access. This point-to-point service is used to replace an existing private TDM circuit for an MPLS node connection. The service is via a single spur connection to an MTN NS aggregation point for the provisioning of corporate MPLS services including Internet Access, VPN access, Hosting and APN’s (Access Point Name). The fibre terminates on a single switch at the client site.
2. • Dual Ethernet MPLS Access. Using the ring infrastructure deployed in the specific metro areas, clients are able to connect to an MTN NS aggregation point via the dual Ethernet MPLS Access service with separate geographical routing for redundancy. The two fibre connections terminate on a single switch at the client site.
   
   • Redundant Dual Ethernet MPLS Access. This service adds another level of redundancy to the dual Ethernet MPLS Access service by using two switches at the client site.
3. Ethernet Private Line Service. This is a point-to-point link in either a pure Ethernet form (same VLAN on both sides of the link) or an 802.1q trunk (to connect two separate switch fabrics or VLAN's). This service facilitates a high bandwidth connection for clients requesting DR or Replication of servers between the two MTN NS data centers (Sandton and Rosebank) on the initial fibre ring deployment. Clients now have the ability to host their servers at both the MTN NS data centers and connect them with high speed fibre based Ethernet. (The Ethernet Private Line service is also available with the three connectivity options, single, dual and dual redundant)

4. Ethernet Broadband. (FUTURE PRODUCT). This service facilitates a high bandwidth connection for multiple clients in a multi-tenant office environment utilising a shared fibre pair connection and switch. Required services are then provisioned as per the client’s requirement. These may include Internet access or access to an existing VPN.

• 24x7 support via our NOC utilising a carrier grade monitoring / management system
• Dedicated bandwidth in various increments between 2Mbps to 1Gbps to suite client’s unique requirements
• Simple pricing – setup price based on distance to MTN NS fibre, monthly price based on access bandwidth and connectivity option selected
• SLA offering 99.8% uptime
• Industry standard interfaces
• QoS offered which will allow VoIP traffic