New submarine fibre-optic cable

[rpm]

New submarine fibre-optic cable

Orange partners Africa Coast to Europe, a new submarine fibre-optic cable that will connect 20 African countries

 

[ic]

This 12,000 km cable, called ACE (Africa Coast to Europe), will extend from Gabon to France, and from 2011 will connect Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde, Mauritania, Morocco, Spain, Portugal and France. An extension to South Africa is also being studied.

Hmmm, just wondering if them folks up in Europe realise that in addition to all the wild taxi drivers we have roaming our streets, Africa also has an East coast, so calling the cable "Africa Coast to Europe" when it really only covers part of the West coast of Africa, is misleading, how about "West Africa + Europe" [WA+E] or "Africa West Coast + Europe" [AWC+E]...

 

[Slooth]

Whilst a landing point might not extend to South Africa, additional bandwidth for other African countries on other cables should alleviate congestion on the cables we do have.

 

[sunsoffun]

Lets hope we do get that extension to South Africa. I know this is still very early days, but I wonder what the capacity on the line is going to be and when the launch date is due for that line?

 

[portcullis]

This has the potential to drive down costs on SAT-3.

 

[bekdik]

This has the potential to drive down costs to Telkom on SAT-3.

Fixed.

Telkom's profits will need boosting, so don't expect anything from them any time.

 

[overandout]

Me thinks fiber optic cable is going to be the next major 'export' of these African countries.

 

[Lydon]

It has begun. Our endless supply of bandwidth. That is woot-worthy.

 

[Kuga]

Eh, someone said this a few days ago..

"Same ****, different toilet"

 

[portcullis]

On a more serious note, this doesn't bode well for the likes of DiData who have a couple of massive call centres in Cape Town.

If IP Bandwidth were delivered on the cheap to some of the ex English colonies in West Africa, they could so easily undercut our boytjies call centres.

 

[Hummercellc]

With the amount of Fiber cables landing do we even have enough capacity with-in the country to handle that? I mean we will still have bottle necking because our external bandwidth will be higher than our internal infrastructure

Way to go Telkom

 

[mancombseepgood]

This has the potential to drive down costs on SAT-3.

Or... come 2011... SAT-what?

 

[Kuga]

I think we should have a poll as to see how many people are tired of seeing the same rehash news about cables landing..

 

[tjunyat]

I think we should have a poll as to see how many people are tired of seeing the same rehash news about cables landing..

Normally I'd agree with you, however, this doesn't appear to be a rehashed article, which are normally about Seacom. This is about a new cable, and while it's still about 4 years away, it is promising for the future. Hopefully we now won't see tons of articles about this cable every week and how it is "imminent"

 

[ThatOtherGuy]

MORE CABLES??? BRING IT ON!!!!

 

[superfly]

They won't be allowed to land in SA because they're not 50% South Africa owned.

 

[mancombseepgood]

Normally I'd agree with you, however, this doesn't appear to be a rehashed article, which are normally about Seacom. This is about a new cable, and while it's still about 4 years away, it is promising for the future. Hopefully we now won't see tons of articles about this cable every week and how it is "imminent"

Agreed - this is indeed not rehash. West coast competition cable would spell doom to SAT3 consortium... the fatcats who have been living off Africa's crooked back.