SEACOM begins construction

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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SEACOM, and its supplier, Tyco Telecommunications, officially announced the commencement of construction of the 13 700 km SEA Cable System connecting the South and East African countries of South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Kenya, and Tanzania with India and Egypt.

The SEA Cable System will have 1.28 Tbps of capacity and it is expected to be completed by June 2009. SEACOM attained full and unconditional financial close on November 9, 2007 and along with their partner, Tyco Telecommunications, brought the construction contract for the full delivery of the system in force on November 13, 2007.

SEACOM further pointed out that as of this Friday the project will have more than US$60 million invested into the cable.

Brian Herlihy, Vice President of Herakles Telecom LLC, the managing partner for SEACOM, said that production of the cable and amplifiers is underway. He said the laying of the cable will start in 10 months, when the cable has been completed, and that it will be ready for service in June 2009.

SEACOM’s offerings will complement communication carriers of South and East Africa through the sale of wholesale international capacity to global networks eastward through India and westward through Europe.

The system will provide African retail carriers with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth, removing the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting East and South African economic growth.

The SEA Cable System will have many times the capacity of the sole existing cable in the region, SAT3/SAFE, enabling greater availability and lower cost for high demand services such as high definition TV, peer to peer networks, IPTV, and Internet.

“The overwhelming demand for increased bandwidth in East and South Africa grows greater each day,” explains Brian Herlihy, President, SEACOM, Ltd.

“The SEA Cable System is making massive new bandwidth available, enabling prices to come down dramatically and opening up the possibility of developing new fields of economic activity in all the countries served.”

“The SEA Cable System will be ready to serve Southern and East African markets from 2009, well in time to meet the bandwidth needs of the Confederations Cup and the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa, and the growing requirements of the economies in the countries it serves.”

“The launch of construction of the SEA Cable System marks a significant moment for our industry as we begin the first major submarine cable infrastructure system to link East and South Africa with India, the Middle East and Europe,” said Michael Rieger, Vice President, Sales, Marketing and Project Management, Tyco Telecommunications.

“We are confident that our contributions to the design and implementation of this system will bring significant advancements to the service and technology capabilities available to citizens and businesses throughout the region.”

South African involvement

It is well known that Neotel will land the SEACOM cable system in South Africa, but other SEACOM partners are starting to emerge.

African telecoms player Gateway Communications has recently announced that it has purchased a 155 Mbps (STM1) circuit from SEACOM.

Gateway Communications is confident that SEACOM will dramatically improve the quality of communications on the east coast of Africa, currently served by satellite. “It will also offer users an alternative to SAT3 for traffic from South Africa to Europe,” the company said.

Prominent South African businessmen Cyril Ramaphosa and Andile Ngcaba have been linked with the SEACOM project, with Ngcaba saying that, "Our agreement to proceed with the building of the cable is a great day for Africa."

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