Main One's South African plans

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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Main One recently announced that it’s 1.920 Tbps, 7000 kilometres long, submarine fibre optic cable system linking West Africa to Europe has been completed and commissioned.

With landing stations in Nigeria and Ghana and branching units in Morocco, Canary Islands, Senegal and Ivory Coast, the cable will deliver a broadband capacity to West Africa of more than ten times what is currently available.

Plans are already under way to extend the Main One cable system to South Africa.  Bernard Logan, Business Development Executive of the Main One Cable Company, said that they are in advanced discussions with SEACOM and other companies to extend the cable to SA.

Logan pointed out that the initial Main One plan was to build a cable which will link South Africa and other West Coast countries to Portugal, but that financial constraints and regulatory issues in SA meant that the cable is being built in two phases:  Taking the cable to Nigeria and then bringing it to South Africa and other countries along the way.

With the first phase of Main One complete and many operators currently lighting circuits on the system Logan said that it is far easier to secure finance and hence extend the cable system to South Africa.

One of the biggest challenges facing Main One is the actual West Coast landing point in South Africa.  The now outdated SAT-2 landing station in Melkbosstrand will fall away which means that adequate space is available for the modern Main One cable system to place their equipment down.

But the sticking point is that Telkom must agree to this – and hence welcoming a competitor into its landing station – which could be challenging.

Logan however said that they will bypass this problem by extending the cable to the SEACOM landing station in Mtunzini if they need to.  The best and cheapest solution will however be to land close to Cape Town and use Dark Fibre Africa or Neotel for their terrestrial backhaul needs within South Africa.

The Main One system is an open access system similar to SEACOM where capacity is sold to any interested party at set bandwidth rates.  It is therefore not particularly surprising that Main One is partnering with SEACOM to bring a comprehensive international connectivity solution to South African companies.

“We work together with SEACOM as brothers,” said Logan.  “We have the same philosophy and with our partner E5 we can definitely make this project happen.”

Questions have been raised about the viability of a local Main One presence when the 5.12 Tbps WACS cable is set to land in the country by the end of 2011, but Logan said that he is confident that they have a sound business model.

The WACS cable is run by a consortium – similar to SAT-3/SAFE – raising questions as to whether the shareholders will be keen to sell bandwidth at affordable rates to their competitors. Logan said that Main One will not only provide affordable and abundant bandwidth, but since it is an open access system anyone will be able to buy from them without any vested interest from a shareholder.

Logan added that they are not only interested in South Africa’s business through their cable extension, but are looking at other growing markets like Angola and Ghana.

Main One is expected to start building their South African leg in early 2011 with a planned launch date of late 2011.

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