Alink is a large Internet and cellular service provider based in the Ivory Coast with operations spanning West Africa across countries including Cameroon, Ghana, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Togo and Niger. The South African office forms a subsidiary of the main holding company, offering services and support to locally based companies which conduct business with West African companies.
"We are also launching an international calling card in South Africa which is already operational in the Ivory Coast, targeting the West African community living in South Africa with attractive call rates, which led to our agreement with NewTelco SA," says Yegen Moodley from Alink's South African office.
"To get this calling card working we needed a point of presence in South Africa and a carrier neutral co-location centre to switch calls internationally between countries. We are also making use of NewTelco's hosting services at their data centre, having provided the company with our equipment for them to install, maintain and support," he adds.
As part of the agreement, NewTelco SA is providing the technology platform to allow Alink to gain network access to South African telecoms operators, enabling the physical cross-connections for calls that originate on or terminate on South African telephone numbers without the need for Alink to sign separate agreements with all local service providers.
This allows Alink to maximise revenue opportunities from their clients calling into foreign customers and allows them to operate their calling cards within South Africa. Alink's network carries the traffic while NewTelco SA provides a seamless interconnect by switching traffic to the relevant destination.
"Alink is a significant entity in the West African market, one of the areas we have targeted for growth, and as such is a highly strategic customer for Jasco. The co-location centre itself is a fairly new offering, having been established in 2010, and this agreement with Alink will help us to grow traffic into South Africa from a variety of territories," says Eckart Zollner, business development manager at Jasco ICT Solutions.
