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DFA, Ciena fibre test reveals capacity record
Planned deployment of optical connectivity technology designed to future-proof South African wholesale network and drive economic growth across country
Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) has announced the results of a “groundbreaking” trial with Ciena that sets a performance benchmark for fibre capacity.
Part of the Maziv group – which also comprises Vuma, SADV, Rise Telecoms and other telecoms brands – DFA claims to be South Africa’s leading wholesale, open-access fibre infrastructure provider to internet service providers (ISPs) and other Icasa-licensed network operators, including operators, datacentres and other service providers.
Since it first began roll-out in 2007, the company has deployed fibre infrastructure across major metros, secondary cities and towns across South Africa.
DFA regards itself as a preferred partner for businesses and service providers seeking reliable and high-speed connectivity services.
The trial follows Phase 1 of DFA’s R800m network upgrade, which included deploying dry underground distribution cabinets (DUDCs) in high-density areas to speed up service delivery.
In August 2023, DFA announced a R400m fibre network expansion project to deploy 800 DUDCs across South Africa, particularly in regions with high network density.
The following March, DFA and Maziv began a network expansion project, implementing two additional infrastructure upgrades to improve network stability in dense areas, accelerate delivery of new services, and future-proof the network for scale and sustainable growth.
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Based on Ciena’s WaveRouter and WaveLogic 6 Extreme services, the trial took place over a 40km stretch between Isando and Midrand in South Africa, where a previous test demonstrated 400 Gbps capability. It successfully transmitted 1.6 Tbps over a single wavelength, delivering more than four times the performance of previous trials, and set a new performance benchmark for IP/optical convergence.
“This greatly enhances the capability of DFA’s existing network and gives us the confidence that we can meet the growing digital demands of our customers,” said Andreas Uys, chief technology officer at DFA parent company Maziv.
“We can seamlessly onboard next-generation connectivity services in selected regions before scaling them nationwide,” he said. “We were able to deploy this groundbreaking technology because of the high quality of our newly upgraded fibre infrastructure and the robust design of our core network to handle the additional traffic.”
The WaveLogic capabilities are deployed by Ciena partner Willcom, enabling scalability, flexibility and sustainability by integrating 400 Gbps, 800 Gbps and 1.6 Tbps services in a single router.
By combining state-of-the-art optical and routing technologies in a unified, multi-layer architecture, Ciena says DFA can fully harness the advantages of coherent routing to build a simpler, more robust network. Additionally, Ciena’s Navigator Network Control Suite is seeing use in providing DFA with one point of control to automate multi-layer network operations and scale wide area network traffic, delivering capacity precisely when and where it’s needed.
“As the leading dark fibre provider in South Africa, DFA is taking bold steps to support the growing connectivity needs of its customers,” said Virginie Hollebecque, EMEA vice-president at Ciena. “With Ciena’s optical and routing technologies, DFA is better positioned to deliver high-scale 400 Gbps aggregation today while preparing its network to scale up to 1.6 Tbps and beyond.”
