We work in all sectors that involve moving and exchanging large amounts of data. Our beneficiaries in higher education and research actively contribute in many fields, including radio astronomy, bioinformatics, computational physics, the health sciences and the humanities.
Over the years, research has become multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional, with an increasing need to collaborate nationally and internationally. We take pride in facilitating efficient collaboration and enabling trust relationships so that our users can focus on their research and teaching with complete peace of mind.
A National and International Network
TENET operates the SANReN network providing the South African higher education and research community with Internet connectivity and value-added services. This national network connects over 350 sites – campuses and offices – across all nine provinces at an aggregate bandwidth in excess of four terabits per second (4 Tbps).
TENET operates the SANReN MPLS network under the terms of a Collaboration Agreement with the SANReN Group of the NICIS, housed at the CSIR (NSG). The network comprises national and international points of presence, connected using a combination of dark and managed fibre links at speeds of up to 100Gbps. Dark fibre metro rings are deployed in most major cities in South Africa. Several international high-capacity submarine links connect South Africa to Europe (via the East & West coasts of Africa) and South America. Peering is available at all major national peering points (NAPAfrica, CINX, JINX, DINX) and internationally at LINX and AMS-IX. Transit services are provided via Liquid Telecom in Cape Town and Johannesburg and via Cogent, NTT and GÉANT in London and Amsterdam. Major deployments of Google, Akamai, and Netflix caches and peering complete the national picture.
TENET and the NSG also participate in the Global Network Architecture (GNA), which is defining a blueprint for interconnecting international research and education networks on a global scale, opening up opportunities for these communities to become more prominent actors in their relevant domains.
TENET operated the UbuntuNet Alliance's gateways and other infrastructure in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Mtunzini, London and Amsterdam for several years before the Alliance developed sufficient capacity to take over its network operations.
Further information on our Network Infrastructure is available.
