WIOCC at ITW 2013

WIOCC will be present at the International Telecoms Week (ITW ’13) being held in the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Chicago, USA from 13th – 15th May, 2013.

Chris Wood – CEO, Ryan Sher – COO, Mike Last – Director, Marketing and International Business Development and Winnie Karisa – Marketing will represent WIOCC at the event.

Chris Wood will be participating in a panel discussion on Tuesday 14th May, 2013 at East Tower, Gold Level, Columbus CD conference room. Mr. Wood will offer his expertise and comments within the spotlight on Africa panel session titled ‘Driving data demand in Africa’. Some of the topics to be discussed on the panel include:
• Tracking the impact of subsea cable connectivity on nascent markets
- identifying markets with the largest data needs and growth projections
• Determining terrestrial infrastructure needs for quality, redundant and reliable services
- is there sufficient deployment of additional terrestrial infrastructure
- tracking IP growth vs. terrestrial network growth across the continent
- evaluating the opportunity represented by large markets like Libya and Ethiopia if liberalized
• Motivating in-region content development to create data demand
- how can service providers promote content creation and distribution to drive demand across their networks?
- when will Africa live up to its bandwidth promise?
• Driving mobile internet uptake and adoption
- cheaper handsets = more eyeballs?
- LTE timelines and viability
- which content and applicants will drive the proliferation of bandwidth?
• Establishing a roadmap to provoke the explosion

To arrange a meeting with the WIOCC team please contact Winnie Karisa at winnie.karisa@wiocc.net or info@wiocc.net.

WIOCC at SubOptic 2013

WIOCC is attending the SubOptic 2013 conference from 22 – 25 April 2013, at the Paris Marriott Rive Gauche hotel in Paris, France.

WIOCC are represented at the event by John Sihra (Chairman) and Chris Wood (CEO). John Sihra will be presenting in a session on ‘Project Development and Implementation’ chaired by Pierre Trembla, OCI Vice Chairman. John’s presentation, which is scheduled for Tuesday 23rd April at 3:30 – 5:00pm, will discuss ‘The Success of the EASSy Consortium Model’.

To set up a meeting with the John Sihra or Chris Wood, please contact Winnie Karisa at Winnie.karisa@wiocc.net or at info@wiocc.net.

WIOCC’s European cable repaired

Repairs to the submarine cable delivering most of WIOCC’s connectivity to Europe were completed on Wednesday April 17th and WIOCC customer traffic is currently being migrated back to its original routing.

During the outage, Africa’s carriers’ carrier WIOCC was able to provide restoration services to all customers requiring them.

“I am delighted that our cable has been repaired on schedule, enabling us to get customers’ services back to normal as early as possible” said Chris Wood, WIOCC’s CEO.

“I apologise to customers for the impact of these multiple cable cuts in the Mediterranean Sea, which have affected telcos and ISPs worldwide over the last month. WIOCC’s team has made a monumental effort over a sustained period of time, with our Service Delivery and Technical Support teams working 24×7 for almost two weeks to ensure that WIOCC’s customers were restored in the fastest possible time.”

WIOCC successes at Africa Leadership Awards 2012

Both WIOCC and its CEO have been successful at the recent 2^nd Africa Leadership Awards. These awards, which are “all about recognizing Super Achievers, Future Business Leaders and the greatest brands in various sectors”, were announced on December 12^th 2012 in Mauritius.

Chris Wood was selected jointly as “African CEO of the Year”. The award recognises that he has been integral to the successful establishment of WIOCC and its evolution into its current form. He is credited with spearheading WIOCC’s evolution into a leading player in Africa’s wholesale bandwidth markets and supplier of end-to-end managed capacity into and out of the continent. Chris’s vision for improving the affordability, reach and diversity of Africa’s connections to the world has seen WIOCC extend high-quality connectivity inland from the coast into many land-locked countries. The award also acknowledges that his energy, leadership and determination continue to be instrumental in securing and improving Africa’s connectivity to the world.

WIOCC was also awarded the “Industry Leadership award” for its African connectivity, based on its end-to-end managed service offerings over an unrivalled, diversity-rich, high-capacity, connectivity network, which seamlessly incorporates more than 50,000km of terrestrial fibre in Africa and 40,000km of submarine fibre-optic connectivity.

These awards bring to an end a very successful year of recognition for WIOCC, complementing the recent Africa Com 2012 award for “Best Pan-African Initiative” and the Global Telecoms Business “Power100” and “40 Under 40” placings achieved by Chris and Ryan Sher.

WIOCC wins Best Pan-African Initiative Award at Africa Com 2012

“The winner of the Best Pan-African category is charging ahead with the task of fusing African communication channels, and it could be giving a glimpse of the connected African map in 10 years’ time… The winner is WIOCC.”

Chris Wood receiving the award on behalf of WIOCC

WIOCC won the Best Pan-African Initiative Award at Africa Com 2012, for building an unrivalled, high-capacity network that seamlessly integrates more than 50,000km of African terrestrial fibre with 40,000km of international submarine cable – giving carriers diversity-rich, high-speed international connectivity to and from over 400 locations in 30 African countries.

The Best Pan-African Initiative Award recognises an initiative taken to improve telecommunications services at a regional or continental level across Africa, and was presented to WIOCC CEO Chris Wood at the Africa Com 2012 awards dinner – which took place in Cape Town, South Africa on 14th November.

After receiving the award, WIOCC CEO Chris Wood commented, “This award recognises WIOCC’s unique achievement in bringing together the networks of our 14 African telco shareholders and selected partners, together with strategic investments in submarine cables including EIG, WACS and EASSy, to create an unparalleled African network footprint and capability. It clearly demonstrates the power of working together in pursuit of a common goal, resulting in something far greater than the sum of its parts.”

As well as serving Africa’s coastal regions, WIOCC’s network is increasingly enabling businesses and individuals in landlocked countries – such as Botswana, Burundi, Lesotho, Malawi, Uganda and Zimbabwe – to benefit from reliable and affordable international connectivity.

A high-resolution version of the photograph is available on request from info@wiocc.net

WIOCC CEO one of the 100 most powerful people in global telecommunications

Chris Wood, WIOCC CEO

Chris Wood, CEO of WIOCC, has been named as one of the 100 most powerful people in the global telecommunications industry.In the 5^th annual GTB Power 100 listing, Global Telecoms Business magazine ranked Chris Wood at number 79 – making him one of only four executives from African businesses to appear in this list of the 100 most powerful people in the global telecommunications industry.

Chris led WIOCC’s development from initially being simply a single route (East African Submarine Cable System – EASSy) supplier of African connectivity, to its current position as the leading African wholesaler of reliable, affordable, high-speed, international connectivity into, out of and within Africa.

The publication cited Chris’s ‘vision for improving the affordability, reliability, reach and diversity of Africa’s international links – which saw WIOCC extend high-quality connectivity into many land-locked countries including Burundi, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe’. 

He was also recognised for ‘creating the first high-capacity, low-latency connectivity ‘ring’ linking Africa’s coasts to Europe’ and for ‘spearheading WIOCC’s evolution into the leading player in Africa’s wholesale capacity market and the #1 supplier of end-to-end managed circuits into and out of Africa’.

WIOCC’s transformation was achieved as a result of a number of initiatives including strategic investments and partnerships which have given WIOCC a unique international network footprint that encompasses 40,000km of submarine fibre-optic cable and more than 50,000km of terrestrial fibre. This enables WIOCC to provide seamless, end-to-end managed service connectivity between 400+ locations in 30 African countries, 100 cities in 29 European countries and more than 700 cities in 70 countries globally.

By using this network, operators in emerging markets such as Botswana, Burundi, Lesotho, Malawi and Zimbabwe are now able to provide their business and consumer customers with faster, more reliable and significantly more affordable, high-speed international connectivity. For example, internet service prices in Lesotho fell by up to 67 per cent as a result of WIOCC delivering lower-cost internet connectivity into the country.

As well as leading WIOCC, Chris has been Chairman of EASSy since August 2011 and was instrumental in securing the January 2012 system upgrade that at the time made EASSy the largest provider of capacity into sub-Saharan Africa.

WIOCC events in September

This month, WIOCC will be attending both Submarine Networks World Singapore and Capacity Africa.

Between 11th and 13th September, Chris Wood will be representing WIOCC at the Submarine Networks World Singapore event at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. He will be available for meetings throughout the event at WIOCC’s exhibition table (#13), and will be participating in an expert panel session entitled “Upgrade or build: How do you justify cable system investments?” on September 12th.

WIOCC are also Gold Sponsors of Capacity Africa – the  meeting place for carriers active in African wholesale markets.

This event will take place on 13th – 14th September at the Hyatt Regency in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. As well as sponsoring a cocktail event on the first evening, James Wekesa (WIOCC’s CCO) will participate in two panel discussions, entitled “Southern African Coastal & Landlocked Countries” on the first day and ”Data and Content Growth in Africa” on the second day. James, Marcel Bhatti (Sales Manager, South Africa) and our event team will be available at the WIOCC booth (#6) throughout the event.

To arrange meetings with WIOCC’s team at either event, please contact us at info@wiocc.net.

Chris Wood interviewed in Capacity magazine

Chris Wood, WIOCC CEO

The chief executive of WIOCC, Africa’s self-styled “carrier’s carrier”, has ruled out any push into the retail market as the provider prepares a new two-pronged expansion drive across the continent.

Speaking exclusively to Capacity magazine, Chris Wood said: “We’ve got no aspirations or desire to move into the retail space; we’re purely in the wholesale space and aim to stay there as we are doing it extremely effectively.”

Instead, Wood will target terrestrial partnerships in the west and connectivity upgrades in the south and east. Spurred by the significant amount of capacity it owns on the recently launched West Africa Cable System (WACS), WIOCC is looking to broaden its predominantly eastern focussed grid of terrestrial fibre networks through partnerships with operators on the west coast. The group is also rolling out its own western terrestrial networks through a number of suppliers.

Elsewhere WIOCC is looking to expand connectivity from the EASSy cable, on which it owns a 30% stake, inland and is now doing business in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. The company is also working on opportunities in Swaziland, one of the few markets on Africa’s south eastern coast that has so far proven elusive for the company.

“In the next two to three years we are looking to consolidate our position as the leading African carrier’s carrier, add connectivity in west Africa and increase connectivity in eastern and southern Africa,” Wood added.

To cope with increasing bandwidth demand the EASSy cable is likely to be upgraded by as much as a terabit in the next 12 to 18 months, according to Wood. The upgrade would be the second in the cable’s recently history, with 160Gbps of capacity added in January 2012.

Click here to read the original article

WIOCC improves international connectivity for Lesotho

Businesses, institutions and consumers in Lesotho are set to experience faster, reliable and significantly more affordable internet connectivity as Africa’s carriers’ carrier WIOCC brings additional broadband capacity into Lesotho.

Utilising its extensive terrestrial and submarine fibre-optic cable network, WIOCC is delivering lower-cost internet connectivity to Lesotho, bringing benefits to consumers and businesses in this mountainous African kingdom. Its arrival has already enabled a reduction in pricing of internet services by up to 67 per cent. This is supporting the Lesotho Government’s 8th Millennium Goal to make the benefits of new technologies available to its citizens and organisations, and to help businesses compete in the international arena.

Educational institutions, such as the National University of Lesotho, are already benefitting – with Basotho students now able to access essential web-based resources that were previously unavailable. For consumers, mobile internet services are being made more affordable to a wider section of the population through significantly reduced charges.

Chris Wood, WIOCC CEO

“Until recently, internet access in Lesotho terminated in South Africa and was shaped and thus limited in international capacity. The connection provided by WIOCC terminates in Europe and provides Lesotho with faster and more affordable connectivity. This change will have a significant impact on the daily lives of the Basotho and Lesotho businesses,” explained WIOCC CEO, Chris Wood.

“Our extensive network reach also enables international enterprises, ISPs and carriers to terminate their services in Lesotho. This, together with the introduction of reduced wholesale pricing, will open up further opportunities in the region.”

“The extra bandwidth made available by WIOCC has enabled us to make a huge reduction in our internet access costs,” comments Mpine Tente, General Manager of Econet Telecom Lesotho (ETL) – the first operator in Lesotho to benefit from the WIOCC capacity. “We are taking advantage of our improved international connectivity to deliver more reliable and affordable broadband services to our customers. Public and private businesses will benefit from reduced prices. All Basotho will benefit from cheaper access to the internet.”

Read the full press release here.

WIOCC Event Schedule, 2012

WIOCC will be attending the following events during the second half of 2012:

• July 24 – 27: 6th African Service and Network Operations (SNO) Workshop, Sandton, Johannesburg
• September 11 – 13: Submarine Networks World, Singapore
• September 13 – 14: Capacity Africa, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
• October 2 – 3: Telecoms World Middle East, Carriers World Middle East, Submarine Networks World Middle East, Dubai
• November 12 – 14: Capacity Europe, Amsterdam
• November 13 – 15: AfricaCom, Cape Town, South Africa

WIOCC will be represented at the different events by Chris Wood – CEO, Ryan Sher – COO, James Wekesa – CCO, Mike Last – Director of Marketing & International Business Development, Hitesh Desai – Country Manager (S. Africa), Marcel Bhatti – Sales Manager (S. Africa), Winnie Karisa – Marketing Assistant & PA to CEO and Gillian Koech – Marketing Assistant.

Chris Wood will be joining a panel on ‘Upgrade or build: How do you justify cable system investments? at Submarine Networks World Singapore, James Wekesa will be on a panel discussing ‘Data and Content Growth in Africa’ at Capacity Africa and Mike Last will be discussing ‘The bandwidth revolution in Africa: status, challenges and opportunities’ at Telecoms World Middle East.

If you would like to book a meeting with WIOCC at any of the above-mentioned events, please contact us at info@wiocc.net.