Laser Light Companies and WIOCC, Africa’s digital backbone,
have signed a five-year $129 million (USD) master services agreement. As part
of the terms, Laser Light will contract with WIOCC for capacity on terrestrial
and subsea cables in and around Africa and support services.
In turn, WIOCC will use Laser Light for its global
connectivity needs beyond its current network footprint and bring the Laser
Light service portfolio to its African clients.
The agreement
will commence upon initial operations of the Laser Light networking platform
expected to begin at the end of 2023 with Africa being part of its Beta Program
roll-out in partnership with Nokia announced in June. Exact deployment details
will be announced in the coming months.
Formed in
2008 and operating exclusively as a wholesaler, WIOCC is Africa’s carriers’
carrier, revolutionizing the delivery of high-capacity connectivity between
Africa and the rest of the world. It provides tailored, end-to-end solutions
between 30 African countries and key financial and commercial centres around
the world. WIOCC’s shareholder and partner networks interconnect over 1,000
locations across 30+ African countries using more than 75,000km of terrestrial
fibre-optic network and up to 200,000km of subsea systems.
Laser Light
is currently deploying its innovative, elastic all-optical network across all
service domains – land, sea, and space – operating as a fully converged
platform. Customers of the platform will be able to self-provision where,
when, and how much data they need across continents, countries and the Edge
while only paying for the volume transported.
“The opportunity to partner with Laser Light in
bringing this transformational capability for businesses and consumers in
Africa is a key stepping stone in implementing our vision “to make an enduring
contribution to Africa’s communications.” The partnership also offers us the
ability to flexibly extend reach beyond the current network footprint and to
expand our existing solutions and infrastructure portfolio with new services
and capabilities for our clients,” said Chris Wood, CEO of WIOCC Group. “This agreement enables us to do so in an
accelerated and cost-effective way which is beneficial to our clients and
shareholders alike.”
“The demand for connectivity options in Africa is
immense, and we are honored to have Africa’s leading carriers’ carrier as one
of our founding launch customers. Given their extensive infrastructure,
relationships, and history of innovative and reliable telecommunications solutions,
WIOCC is the ideal partner to be able greatly expand and accelerate the reach
of the Laser Light platform throughout the continent,” said Bob Brumley, Chairman and CEO of
Laser Light Companies.