CC image courtesy of @fran on Flickr
Orange has commissioned West Africa’s first very large-capacity IP Point of Presence (PoP) in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, looking to enhance internet connectivity in the sub-region by offering faster connection speeds and improved reliability for wholesale customers.
The IP PoP is part of the technical infrastructure equipment necessary to enable local networks to access the internet through an interconnection point with long-distance carrier networks.
Abidjan also hosts a landing point for the 17,000 kilometre ACE submarine cable, which runs down the west coast of Africa from Europe, thus making it an ideal location for the IP PoP facility and allowing for optimal connectivity with networks across the entire region.
As a fully redundant IP PoP, this new facility opens up the region and allows Orange to offer high quality, secure connections over the wholesale market to West African countries. Orange said over the medium and long term, the Abidjan IP PoP will facilitate the expansion of the African IP market.
“By connecting to this very large-capacity PoP, wholesale customers, regional operators and internet service providers (ISPs) will benefit from cost-effective connections to a Tier 1 operator. Additionally, the customer experience will be improved due to this connection point which will bring content providers closer to internet users,” Orange said.
