Data centre operator Teraco on May 6 said it had become an integral node to the Meltingpot Indianoceanic Submarine System (MÉTISS) – a 3 200 km subsea fibre-optic cable system connecting South Africa to the Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar, Reunion and Mauritius.

MÉTISS consortium members have infrastructure in Teraco's Durban and Johannesburg data centre facilities, providing the Indian Ocean islands with direct access to Teraco’s ecosystem of more than 300 networks, 130 information technology service providers, 50 global content providers and key global cloud providers, said Teraco interconnection and peering head Michele McCann.

"The availability of a new cable servicing the Indian Ocean islands region widens the addressable market for content and cloud providers in South Africa. It adds new resilience to the existing telecommunications infrastructure," she added.

Peering at Africa’s largest Internet exchange, NAPAfrica, is also possible for the island region and brings many benefits, including reduced latency, network fault tolerance, reliable exchange of traffic, increased routing control and improved network performance.

Interconnection and peering successfully address a growing need for more bandwidth at the lowest possible latency. This also needs to be done cost-effectively. The MÉTISS cable system will enable further interconnection within the Indian Ocean islands region and the growth of its digital economy.

Teraco makes it easy and accessible for everyone to connect within the data centre and immediately benefit, said McCann.

MÉTISS provides global telecommunications organisations, multinationals and enterprises with interests in the region with reliable services and capacities.

“The cable brings connectivity across regions that were previously hard to reach. Through Teraco, access to this cable is an interconnect away and we are very proud to play such a pivotal role in the success of this cable system,” said McCann.