EASSy launch date pushed back

Different network

EASSY and the NEPAD ICT Broadband Network are actually different networks. In some discussions, EASSY is regarded as being part of the NEPAD initiative. EASSY is however not being run directly under a NEPAD banner. I suggest that the writer of the article confirm the information given in the article with the EASSY secretariat. There are contact details for the EASSY secretariat on the EASSY website at www.eassy.org.

It might be a good idea for MyADSL to contact the EASSY secretariat and obtain information about the actual planned RFCS date of the cable system.
 
As far as I know, EASSY is only a part of the Nepad ICT Broadband Network. The other part being an overland fibre optiic network linking all the signatory states.

I doubt that the entire Nepad network would have to become operational before we see the benefit of EASSY. It only needs to land in Durban to come online to SA needs. In a March press release the EASSY project announced that the cable was now a reality and the entire EASSY project would be completed before the end of 2008. What has changed?
 
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Just when we think it can't possibly get any worse for telecommunication in SA, someone will prove you wrong.
 
Guess we should start to accept that this is Africa. NOTHING happens overnight. Except when they break into your house and manage to steal EVERYTHING during the night.
 
geoffr said:
EASSY and the NEPAD ICT Broadband Network are actually different networks. In some discussions, EASSY is regarded as being part of the NEPAD initiative. EASSY is however not being run directly under a NEPAD banner. I suggest that the writer of the article confirm the information given in the article with the EASSY secretariat. There are contact details for the EASSY secretariat on the EASSY website at www.eassy.org.

It might be a good idea for MyADSL to contact the EASSY secretariat and obtain information about the actual planned RFCS date of the cable system.
Click to expand...

Some recent quotes to clarify a few things:

"Partners in the long-awaited EASSy cable include Telkom, which is 38% government owned. But yesterday the communications department’s director general, Lyndall Shope-Mafole, confirmed that SA might lead a rival cable building project because of the EASSy consortium’s intransigence.

Ideally, the EASSy cable will be a key component in a project to increase Africa’s bandwidth launched by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad). But private investors in the EASSy consortium were more interested in making a profit than in providing affordable bandwidth, Shope-Mafole said.

Telkom CEO Papi Molotsane has repeatedly said Telkom will only invest in EASSy if it can make a decent return on its investment."

... followed by ...

"Chief Executive Papi Molotsane suddenly quit. He may have been pushed out of the top job.

The final straw for government is believed to have been its conflict with Telkom over the East African Submarine Cable System (Eassy) contract to install a 300-million underwater telecoms cable."

If there are really two projects, one of them (EASSy) is in very deep water ;) , unless the new CEO of Telkom also wants to depart early.
 
I knew this was going to happen so I'm not surprised. This is the SA way of doing things...delay it until it doesn't exist anymore.
 
Praeses said:
I knew this was going to happen so I'm not surprised.
Click to expand...

Except that it hasn't happened so you should be surprised. :eek:

Seriously, the story wrongly assumes that Ivy was refering to EASSy in her speech when she refered to the completion data of the Nepad Broadband Network, whereas EASSy is only one of the components of the network that will span Southern and Eastern Africa.

We really don't have to wait for a fibre connection between Uganda and Rwanda in order to benefit from EASSy here in SA.
 
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