Why a South African ISP Just Cut Off Its Transit Provider

Some bold moves deserve attention, and South African ISP MWEB has made one. They’ve severed their transit connections with Vodacom and Telkom South Africa, citing high costs and congestion as major barriers to delivering quality internet services.

For those unfamiliar with the South African market, Telkom South Africa (AS5713) was MWEB’s original transit provider. But according to RIPE’s Routing Information Service (RIS), that connection was shut down on November 2nd. And just thirty minutes later, MWEB (AS10474) appeared to pick up a new transit customer—Yebo (AS12258)—with Yebo’s prefixes being advertised to Interoute. The commercial details of that relationship aren’t visible in the routing table, but the timing suggests a strategic shift.

MWEB’s stance is simple: peering works, and expensive transit doesn’t. They’ve observed that service levels improve when traffic avoids the incumbent networks and is delivered directly to local ISPs via peering.

And if an ISP refuses to peer? No problem—MWEB simply routes traffic internationally, which might still be congested but is far cheaper than local transit. The knock-on effect? Incumbents end up receiving traffic via links they themselves pay for, further incentivising them to peer.

Peering is the fastest and most cost-effective way to improve internet performance. Here’s why:

• More Bandwidth, Less Cost
  Peering allows ISPs to connect directly, cutting out expensive middlemen. This increases available capacity and reduces the cost per megabit.
• Better Performance
  Unlike transit, which can be unpredictable, peering agreements allow for direct monitoring and management of traffic, ensuring reliability and availability.
• Future-Proofing for High-Bandwidth Services
  Streaming media, high-definition video conferencing, and cloud applications all rely on low-latency, high-capacity connections. Peering ensures the network can handle them.

Lessons for Incumbents

Incumbents like Telkom South Africa are in a strong position to sell premium transit services—but only if they make them genuinely competitive. As I explained in my last article, the strategy for incumbents should not be to avoid peering altogether, but rather to:

• Peer with key local networks to improve regional traffic flows.
• Ensure backbone and customer-facing capacity is well-managed and capable of handling demand.
• Deliver a world-class transit product that ISPs actually want to buy.

The reality is clear: the best way to protect market share isn’t to block peering—it’s to make transit so good that providers willingly choose to pay for it.

MWEB’s move is just the latest in a growing trend of ISPs taking matters into their own hands. It’s a reminder that in a competitive market, those who embrace interconnection will always have the upper hand.