Following the announcement of Stacuity’s new South Africa edge location, delivered with lead partner iONLINE, we sat down with the companies’ respective CEOs John Freeman (Stacuity ) and David Farquharson (iONLINE ). They detailed the enhanced capabilities the programmable edge network brings to the region, focusing on low-latency, agility, and realtime control.
David, let’s start with the big picture. iONLINE recently selected Stacuity as its core network provider. What drove this partnership, and what are you trying to achieve for global enterprise connectivity?
David: “Traditional network infrastructure simply can’t keep pace with the demands of modern global enterprises. They need speed, control, and resilience. By integrating Stacuity’s programmable mobile core and edge capabilities, we’re achieving unmatched agility. Where traditional operators might take eight to twelve months to deploy a large-scale enterprise solution, our joint capability means we can deliver the same outcomes in as little as two weeks. That uplift in speed is transformative for industries like logistics and manufacturing.”
John, agility is clearly a key differentiator. Can you explain how Stacuity’s core technology enables this rapid deployment and also hands back control to the customer?
John: “Our architecture is fundamentally different. It’s a cloud-native, software defined mobile core that separates the control plane from the user plane. This allows us to deploy many user plane nodes, creating that local user experience in terms of latency, data sovereignty, and content delivery. We also provide an incredible level of granularity and visibility.”
“Via Stacuity’s platform, customers can dynamically manage traffic flows, security policies, and device behavior in real-time. For large IoT estates, like smart meters, if devices stop connecting, you don’t wait weeks for an operator to troubleshoot; you (or through a managed service such as that provided by iONLINE) can instantly click a button and see what’s happening, providing real-time visibility and control.”
