Africa's largest vendor neutral data centre, Teraco, has today announced that a high speed, low-latency fibre link between the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the Teraco Isando data centre in Johannesburg has been completed by Dark Fibre Africa.

In a statement Teraco explained that this new route provides capital market participants with the reliable, high-bandwidth and high-speed connectivity required to transport critical financial data.

Jan Hnizdo, chief financial officer, Teraco, says: "The route, which spans 32 km, enables the Teraco community to provide capital market participants with solutions for high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity. In real terms, this link offers a sub-500 microsecond round trip and is a virtual extension of the JSE's 'meet me room' into Teraco."

Hnizdo says the connectivity is being provisioned in 1G and 10G capacities, and effectively means that users can transmit "as much as they want" and leverage the sub-500 microsecond speed.

He believes the new route will add value by bringing liquidity into the capital markets ecosystem. Brokers, for example, will be able to radically speed up their time to trade.

According to Teraco the new route is significant for all capital market participants including brokers, traders, market data providers and the carriers that service the capital markets ecosystem "as it provides them direct access to the JSE and the additional choice of connecting with more than 150 network and connectivity providers, covering local and international markets including the whole of Africa."

"Teraco is an African and international connectivity gateway. We provide access to over 150 international and local telecommunications companies, including the submarine cables landing in South Africa."

The company is currently busy with the construction of its second data centre in Johannesburg, which it says will bring its total ICT infrastructure investment to over R1 billion.