The Djibouti Data Centre (DDC) in East Africa is helping lower internet accessibility costs for carriers in the region, says research firm Frost and Sullivan.

Frost & Sullivan has awarded the DDC with the Enabling Technology Leadership award for the region.

Frost and Sullivan said the DDC is the “only data centre facility in East Africa with access to all major international fibre optic cable systems connecting Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific with Africa”.

The DDC offers “flexible” accessibility options that enable cable head access. It also provides backhaul services for global and regional network operators, virtual point of presence (vPOP) options as well as the Djibouti Internet Exchange Point (DjIX), says Frost & Sullivan.

Lehlohonolo Mokenela, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) analyst at Frost & Sullivan, said in a statement that data centers are a valuable tool for carriers.

“Africa has historically been challenged by high Internet costs,” said Mokenela.

“The DjIX has been designed to not only reduce costs for operators, but to also add significant value by being a tool for carriers, content providers and other service providers to improve the efficiency, resilience and performance of their networks,” he said.

The DDC’s “strategic location and partnership with Djibouti Telecom” enables it to effectively provide accessibility to carriers a broad portfolio of products and services in the region.

“The DjIX allows carriers, ISPs, and other Internet service providers to keep local traffic in East Africa local by reducing the need to exchange traffic at other peering points outside of the region using higher cost IP transit options.

“The results are reduced latency, faster connectivity, and lower costs for network operators and users in East Africa,” Frost and Sullivan said on Wednesday.

Africa has witnessed a flurry in developments of data centres and points of presence (POP) infrastructure this year.

Business software firm SAP told ITWeb Africa earlier this year that it is working to certify partners to have a data centre presence in Africa.

And in July, French telecoms operator Orange, international connectivity services provider BICS and Dimension Data owned Internet Solutions (IS) have announced new PoPs in Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Swaziland and Malawi.