In a nail-biting race over three laps on Tuesday, 20 April, Vodacom Business’ Metro Ethernet Fibre network (Metro E) barely beat Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton in a neck-on-neck race between man against data.
Blue-chip captains of industry; members of the media and other guests stood in common awe as they watched the amazing performance of skill, speed and control displayed with such easy grace by Lewis Hamilton. Adrenalin bursting, famous radio personality Sasha Martiningo gave the countdown, tyres burned and they were off – a once-in-a-lifetime race against time, and a certain showstopper as Lewis showed what makes him a World Number One.
As part of the challenge, Lewis raced around the 4.2km Kayalami Race Track in Johannesburg against a data capsule of 5.4GB of data transmitted across Vodacom Business’ super-fast, high-capacity Metro Ethernet fibre network from Midrand to Sandton.
On the third non-standing race lap, Lewis’ time of 2.0 minutes exactly matched that of the data capsule; however with his first-lap time of 2.11 minutes and a second lap of 2.09 minutes, Metro E just managed to take the overall race on average lap times.
The 5.4GB of data was enough to contain about 5 full-length movies of about 1GB each. Lewis, as part of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1™ team, was competing against Metro E in a Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG, which has a top speed of 250km/h.
Lewis Hamilton said about the race: “This was a unique challenge – I’m used to racing against a person and not technology. The moment I got into my car I knew that the speed at which the information travels would be very hard to beat – however that was the challenge.”
Ermano Quartero, Managing Executive of Products and Services at Vodacom Business, says the day was all about high technology, high speed, high performance, and high reliability and celebrated a milestone for Vodacom Business and South African enterprises.
“Metro E provides the capacity and speed to fulfil all big business’ mission-critical and time-sensitive connectivity needs – reliably and cost-effectively. With Metro E, businesses have access to a super-fast, high capacity fibre connection, giving them greater control over what they send and how they connect and communicate.”
Will Lewis be back for a repeat performance?
“I love it in South Africa! I’ve received an incredible reception from its people – and I really didn’t have a full idea of the following I have here. It’s been a great experience and I really enjoyed racing on the Kyalami race track.”
STORY FROM VODACOM BUSINESS
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