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Discover Digital, a South African media technology and content company, has announced that it is rolling out video-on-demand (VOD) server technology across markets in Africa as the firm prepares to launch a new video streaming service for viewers across the continent.

The Johannesburg-based company said it is building “in-market content distribution networks (CDNs) and local caching” to support higher quality video streaming without buffering at a competitive price, according to a statement released on Wednesday.

“Africa has been under-served in terms of local CDNs,” said Leon van den Berg, Discover Digital’s Head of Technology. “You had the SEACOM cable and touchpoints running around the edge of the continent, and very little going inland. And when the content is hosted abroad and not cached in-country, there is typically a degraded viewing experience. This is why you’re still likely to find more buffering on video hosted abroad than that coming from a local VOD service.”

Discover Digital said it is partnering with Broadpeak, a French CDN technology specialist, to deploy a multi-tenanted CDN and cloud-based infrastructure across the continent. The CDN infrastructure will support its own upcoming VOD service as well as other VOD players in the market.

“We’re not building this highway for ourselves – we’re building it out of a current need for us and a future need for others,” said Stephen Watson, Discover Digital’s Managing Director. “Our strategy is to support other players, including competitor VOD players, with solutions in every country.”

Discover Digital said it currently has two CDNs in South Africa and a CDN and cloud service that goes into Zimbabwe. The company said it also has a CDN in Zambia and a CDN is now being deployed into Nigeria.

“As Discover Digital expands across the continent, it will launch an in-market CDN in each new region,” the company said.

On Thursday, Watson told Bloomberg that Discover Digital is starting a new online TV service in South Africa in partnership with Investec, an investment advisory firm. Watson said the new service will provide a mix of on-demand subscription content and pay-per-view entertainment as well as sports coverage and news services.

The Discover Digital CEO said the company has secured licensing deals with six Hollywood studios – including Sony Corporation and Walt Disney – to support its new service. Watson also said Discover Digital has signed an agreement with Sun International, a leading South African hoteling company, to enable hotel guests access its online TV content for free.

According to Bloomberg, Discover Digital’s new service will join a wave of online TV providers seeking to grab subscribers in Africa as broadband and mobile Internet becomes faster and cheaper to fuel demand for video-on-demand services.

The surge in online TV providers poses a threat to DSTV, owned by Naspers, which has long been the dominant pay-tv provider on the continent. Naspers launched Showmax in 2015 in response to growing competition.

Besides Discover Digital, other new entries to Africa’s online TV market are Netflix, the US giant, which expanded to the continent in January 2016; Kwese, which is owned by Strive Masiyiwa, the billionaire founder of the Econet Group; and Ericsson’s Nuvu, which has partnered with Bharti Airtel in Nigeria and Econet Wireless in Zimbabwe.

Iflix, a video streaming service with customers mostly in southeast Asia, plans to start streaming TV shows in Africa this month, according to Bloomberg.