Technology: Workonline Communications Establishes in Nigeria
Workonline Communications Establishes New Point-of-Presence in Nigeria. Workonline’s presence will allow content distribution networks, and internet service providers with stringent quality needs to deploy in Nigeria. Workonline Communications (www.Workonline.africa), one of the largest IP network providers in Africa, has launched its first Point of Presence (PoP) in Nigeria, further enhancing the group’s West African presence.
The new megaPoP went live late last year, ready to provide 10 Gbps and 100 Gbps services at Rack Centre (www.Rack-Centre.com) in Lagos, West Africa’s best-connected datacentre. This adds to the growing list of African markets in which the company manages megaPoPs including Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa.
Workonline is one of the largest IP transit networks in Africa. Founded by Ben Maddison and Edward Lawrence in 2006, the business has grown significantly to meet the growing demand for wholesale connectivity services across the African continent.
Their customers include some of the world’s largest carriers, Internet Service Providers, Content Distribution Networks and Mobile Network Operators. They pride their selves on the stability and resilience of their global network, which they operate according to the highest standards across multiple points of presence (PoPs).
Whilst they are large enough to ensure consistent reliability and innovation, they remain small enough to adapt to specific market requirements. Their services are delivered according to global best practices.
As a trusted advisor to some clients, innovation and agility remain at the core of their business. Designing innovative commercial and technical solutions has given them the edge and led to their exponential growth over the last decade. The combination of their strong partnerships and their highly skilled and experienced engineers allows them to remain a leader in the provision of reliable tailormade communication services.
Their research and development is constantly in motion providing some clients with innovative and cost-effective solutions on a global scale while maintaining the highest levels of design, build and deployment.
Workonline’s presence will allow content distribution networks, and internet service providers with stringent quality needs to deploy in Nigeria, and will help those already in-country to keep African traffic in Africa.
Benjamin Deveaux, Head of Business Development at Workonline Group explains: “When content providers deploy in a market, they can reduce the time it takes to load the content they serve over the internet.
Although many content networks have now deployed in parts of Africa, there is still around 80% of Africa’s internet capacity which goes back to Europe where the content is hosted. Workonline is on a mission to help Africa keep traffic on the continent to increase the quality for the user and develop the African internet economy.”
Workonline (AS 37271), founded in 2006, is one of the fastest-growing IP transit networks in Africa. The company specializes in providing wholesale IP transit (IPT), remote peering, and Layer 2 Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) services.
Jasper Lankhorst, Group CEO of Rack Centre, welcomed Workonline to its carrier- and cloud-neutral data centre which has earned several ISO certificates including ISO 27001, the global information security quality standard. Since its inception in 2013, Rack Centre has maintained a 100% uptime and offers its customers 100% neutral access and uncapped interconnect capacities.
In early 2019, Workonline Communications became the first African wholesale IP transit provider to deploy Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) Origin Validation (OV) to improve the security of internet routing. Workonline is also an active member of the Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) operator community, and was the first African network to implement all four of the MANRS routing manifesto actions.
These MANRS routing manifesto actions are a commitment by a network to provide the highest feasible levels of security, stability and performance for interconnectivity with other network operators.
About Workonline Communications Group
Workonline is one of the largest and the fastest growing IP transit networks in Africa. The company is focused on providing highly scalable, high quality, and flexible service options to meet the needs of carriers, Internet Service Providers, content providers, and mobile operators.
What They Do
IP Transit
IP Transit is a critical component of any fast-growing Internet ecosystem. As one of Africa’s leading IP transit providers, they operate an autonomous system – (AS) 37271 – with a single, consistent, global routing policy. This provides content networks and service providers direct connectivity to the African and global Internet through the best available routes.
Ethernet Transport Services
The Workonline Ethernet services provide VLAN transparency and any-to-any connectivity to high data traffic locations, ensuring optimal conditions suited to business-critical global connectivity. Their off-continent connectivity services can be delivered at major European and Asian hubs.
Remote Peering
They provide partial transit and remote peering services to leading global IXs. These services are delivered over their high-quality backbone from any of their African POPs. The off-continent IXs they offer these services to, include:
- Netherlands AMS-IX, NL-IX
- France: France-IX
- Germany: DE-CIX Frankfurt
- Singapore: EIE Singapore
- United Kingdom: LINX, LONAP
Remote Cloud Connect L2 Services
Remote Cloud Connect provides remote connections to cloud platforms such as Google Cloud, AWS Direct Connect, Microsoft Azure Express Route, Oracle and IBM by leveraging global cloud exchange platforms, including Teraco, InterXion and Equinix. This low latency cloud solution is delivered over a dedicated Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) service.
Regional Licenses
Workonline is proud to be licensed by the following authorities:
- Ghana: National Communications Authority (NCA)
- Kenya: Communications Authority (CA)
- South Africa: Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA)
Workonline is also a member of the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) and is therefore bound to uphold the ISPA Code of Conduct, as well as the iCode code of conduct.
