25 October 2013

Telecom Namibia has joined forces with German Internet provider Deutscher Commercial Internet Exchange (De-CIX) and New Telco SA, a Jasco Group company, to establish international access points in South Africa and Namibia to the German Internet exchange (DE-CIX). This comes on the back of a recent move by Telecom Namibia in partnership with New Telco SA to establish Points of Presence (PoPs) in South African and European communication hubs last year. The access points will connect to the De-CIX Apollon platform, the world’s largest Internet Exchange, providing direct access for Namibia and South Africa to more than 550 networks connected to the De-CIX node. Jasco will provide the physical platform to enable this interconnection. The establishment of this Internet Exchange is expected to deliver multiple benefits to customers of Telecom Namibia and to the economy of the region as a whole.

`We are very excited about the partnership with New Telco SA which enabled Telecom Namibia to interconnect its PoPs to the world’s largest internet exchange, the DE-CIX. This interconnection will provide us with the ability to provide a speedy, reliable and robust connectivity to European digital ecosystem and beyond. It also dramatically improved routing efficiency and the quality of the Internet experience for end-users,` says Isak Ouseb, Senior Manager: Product Management at Telecom Namibia.

`Our partnership with New Telco SA is a pioneering step in connecting Africa to the world, removing the reliance on third parties to connect internationally and driving down the cost of communications for the continent. This is just the first step in revolutionising telecommunications in Namibia. Further phases, such as additional PoPs and the extension of our national infrastructure will enable us to further extend these services,` Ouseb added.

The establishment of these access points will create an optimal enabling environment for exchanging local, regional and international Internet traffic, facilitating Namibia’s vision of becoming the ICT hub in the West African region. It will also allow for more efficient use of available infrastructure and capabilities, and will support the building of centralised infrastructure for content localisation. Other benefits include substantial cost savings for network operators through a reduction in long-haul traffic costs, better resiliency and security of network infrastructure, massive reduction in latency and a reduced risk of outages, resulting in improved customer experience in Namibia and the region.

`In the past, traffic to and from Namibia either could not connect, or had to be routed via multiple different countries, depending on how service providers were connected to each other. With the establishment of the IXP, traffic is now under the direct control of Telecom Namibia, and can be sent directly over their own traffic routes to the De-CIX aggregation point, and from there to all of the European service providers connected to the hub. This lowers the cost of routing, with a knock-on effect to customers, and also improved speed and reliability. Given the close historical links with Namibia and Germany, having a direct connection makes sense from an economical point of view. The IXP will provide a direct interconnect between businesses in Germany and their customers or branches in Namibia, improving business,` says Eckart Zollner, Head of Business Development, Jasco ICT Solutions.

`Telecom Namibia is a truly unique network on the platform, the first African network from the West Coast to benefit from the cutting edge Apollon interconnection solution. Telecom Namibia will benefit from first mover advantage and is poised to take over technical, commercial and marketing leadership in the region as a result,` says Andreas Sturm, De-CIX Management, GmbH.

The IXP facility will not only function as an Internet Exchange switch, but will also enable data centre services to be offered, which will open up new avenues of business for both Telecom Namibia and other operators in the country.

The three-party agreement between New Telco SA, Telecom Namibia and De-CIX was signed in August 2013 and the interconnect has now been fully implemented effective from the beginning of September, enabling Telecom Namibia to begin rolling out new services and solutions to its customers.

15 November 2013

Telecom Namibia announces new tariffs effective 1 December 2013

• Peak tariff for calls to RSA mobile reduce by 8%
• Tariffs for calls to Angola cut by average 8%
• Tariffs for calls to international destinations cut by average 9%
• Local call tariffs for Callmaker reduce by 15%
• Fixed to mobile tariffs reduce from N$1.49 to N$1.29 per minute
• FREE and UNLIMITED calling from a landline

As the world becomes a global village, it is vital for communication to transcend without hiccups, costs being one of them. We have made it our goal at Telecom Namibia to make telecommunication most affordable to consumers of our services and products.

It is a pleasure to announce the new reduced tariffs to our consumers for the 2013/14 financial year with effect from 1 December 2013. This is part of the company’s efforts to stimulate traffic to key international destinations and facilitate economic growth and development. It is also important to note that there have been reductions in international settlement rates over the past years and it is necessary to pass these savings to consumers in order to stimulate demand for international calling services.

Telecom Namibia is set to reduce the basic cost of prepaid voice services when making local and national calls, as well as calls to selected international destinations, with effect from the 1 December 2013.

Tariffs changes

Peak tariff for calls to RSA mobile destinations will be slashed by 8% while the off-peak RSA mobile and RSA fixed call charges were kept unchanged.

Peak tariffs for calls to Angola, Germany, UK, Portugal, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, France and Kenya will be cut by average 10% while off-peak tariffs to the same destinations will be lowered by average 8.5% for both fixed and mobile destinations.

Call tariffs for the USA and Rest of the World will be reduced by 9% both mobile and fixed line destinations.

In aligning to prevailing settlement costs, tariffs to call Zimbabwe mobile will be increased to N$ 4.35 and N$ 5.15 per minute for postpaid and prepaid, respectively.

Talk International call plan

Telecom has introduced an attractive call plan for international callers. The Talk International package will enable fixed line residential customers (post-paid) to sign-up for a package and benefit from preferential tariffs to selected international destinations and bundled minutes.

Customers who sign-up for this call plan can call to all fixed and mobile RSA destinations at only 99c per minute.Calls to Germany, UK and USA will be charged at N$1.99 per minute for both fixed and mobile destinations.

Calls to Angola, Botswana and Zambia will be charged at N$ 1.49 per minute both fixed and mobile destinations.

The Talk International call plan attracts a subscription fee of N$199 per month and customers are awarded 100 FREE minutes to call international destinations. Activation of the package is FREE of charge.

Fixed to Mobile

Telecom Namibia fixed to mobile tariffs will be reduced from N$1.49 to N$1.29 per minute effective 1 December 2013.

CallMaker Charges

Local call tariffs for CallMaker will be reduced by 15%, while CallMaker national call tariffs for peak and off-peak will be reduced by 16% and 12% respectively.

The Validity Periods for the initial CallMaker starter pack will be revised from 180 days to 360 days.

The adjustments are in line with the on-going tariff rebalancing process initiated by Telecom Namibia a few years ago. Tariffs rebalancing is the process of aligning the tariffs of services to the costs of providing them and eliminating cross-subsidising of services.

Our continued quest to rebalance tariffs reinforces Telecom Namibia’s image as a customer oriented organisation and the new tariffs plan has been initiated keeping in mind the grassroots reach of Telecom Namibia in terms of its customer base and thus making the use of Telecom Namibia’s services and products more accessible and affordable for its consumers.

TalkNet and TalkNet Plus Packages

Using a landline even getting cheaper and cheaper……..
Telecom Namibia has introduced attractive call plans on its fixed line service. The call plans, TalkNet and TalkNet Plus allows subscribers to make FREE and UNLIMITED landline to landline calls during off-peak time, i.e. Every day from 19h00 – 07h00 weekdays, All day weekend calls and public holidays.

TalkNet package is bundled with 50 FREE minutes to call national mobile numbers and a preferential tariff of 85c per minute to calling national mobile numbers.

With the TalkNet Plus package, subscribers enjoy 1000 FREE minutes for landline to landline calls during peak time every day and 100 FREE minutes to call national mobile numbers. A preferential rate of 75c per minute is applicable when calling national mobile numbers.

Flexible payment plans accompany the packages from as little as N$ 169 per month.

18 November 2013

Partners with PCCW to extend data superhighway worldwide

Telecom Namibia, today announced that it has unveiled its Global IP-MPLS VPN and Carrier Ethernet products at AfriCom 2013, which took place in Cape Town, South Africa, from the 12-14 November 2013.

The telecommunication giant’s Managing Director Frans Ndoroma, CCO Heiko Trost and COO Hein Bader were amongst those who attended Africa's largest annual communications Congress and Exhibition.

Over the past couple of years, Telecom Namibia has been shifting its focus from providing pure communications to offering IP and IT services, and expanding its reach beyond the borders of Namibia.

Telecom Namibia’s head for International and Wholesale services Ernst Nitschke said the unveiling of the international products was a "big step forward", as it is the first services to be offered globally on the company’s IP-MPLS network.

The company’s IP-MPLS VPN service enables customers to securely connect international sites to sites in Namibia and SADC for transfer of voice, data and multimedia traffic and vice versa. MPLS IP-VPN provides end-to-end connectivity and allows intranet, extranet and remote access capabilities.

Telecom Namibia’s Global Ethernet Services are designed to meet customers’ high speed global connectivity requirements with high degree of reliability and flexibility to upgrade the bandwidth quickly between geographically dispersed locations, when needed thereby reducing total cost of ownership.

The new international products will be delivered over Telecom Namibia’s IP-MPLS carrier class network of own PoPs and in partnerships with international carriers, thereby leveraging their extensive submarine network that offers multiple restoration paths for rerouting traffic in case of exigencies.

The service is available with six options for QoS levels ranging from a standard best-effort service to a high quality real-time service.

“The service is ideal for both enterprises and carriers needing cross-border connectivity for high traffic volumes and mission critical applications, such as high-speed data transfer, video streaming and distributed SAN applications,” explains Isak Ouseb, Senior Manager: Product Management at Telecom Namibia.

“Such applications require a scalable platform that can provide the flexibility to accommodate ad-hoc business requirements of bandwidth upgrade, quickly and cost effectively,” he added.

“The Global IP-MPLS VPN and Carrier Ethernet products enhance existing international products offerings such as our TDM-based international private leased circuit and international express routes in terms of uptime, redundancy, reliability, resilience, cost-effectiveness and QoS offerings,” says Ouseb

The services come in the wake of the establishment of international points of presence in Cape Town, Johannesburg, London and Frankfurt by Telecom Namibia in partnership with NewTelco SA, a Jasco Group company,

These PoPs were interconnected to the world’s largest internet exchange, the Deutscher Commercial Internet Exchange (DE-CIX), providing direct access for Namibia to more than 550 networks connected to the De-CIX node.

“Our international PoPs and our interconnect to the DE-CIX has given Telecom Namibia extensive coverage in key business cities throughout Asia, Europe and North America,” Nitschke said.

Meanwhile, Telecom Namibia has signed a MPLS network interconnection agreement with Hong Kong based PCCW Global to enhance its international network coverage and service offerings.

The interconnection agreement will extend Telecom Namibia’s service coverage in global Internet access, IPLC, Ethernet, and IP VPN to its overseas customers through PCCW Global’s robust and resilient MPLS network which covers over 1,500 cities in 110 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. This collaboration will also enable PCCW Global to provide its international customers with greater local access to the SADC region.

“This partnership is one of the important milestones in developing our international business, especially international data services. It will extend the coverage of our services from Namibia to the rest of the world and vice versa,” Nitschke said.

He also confirmed that the new Global IP-MPLS VPN and Carrier Ethernet products will be exhibited at the 3-day conference Capacity Europe in Amsterdam, Netherlands, which starts today.

Capacity Europe is the flagship carrier meeting connecting the European and global wholesale telecoms markets. Now in its 13th year, the event brings together over 900+ executive-level attendees from over 300+ different companies in the global market.