Nepad’s R14bn broadband behemoth
The Nepad e-Africa Commission plans a mega undersea cable broadband project it says will be ready for 2010. It wants the other prospective cable operators including Seacom and Infraco to join forces with it.
Speaking for the first time on its proposed cable since the breakaway with the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), Nepad said the planned cable project would cost of the order of $2bn (roughly R14bn) and no longer only run down the continent’s East coast.
Instead, it would span the East and West Coasts of Africa – with links to island countries like Madagascar and Mauritius as well a terrestrial network including landlocked countries – connecting Africa with Brazil, as well as Europe, India and the Middle East.
It would have a massive capacity of 3,8 terabits.
Although Nepad could not say exactly how much cheaper the capacity would be than current prices, it said this would be roughly one tenth, or less, of prevailing prices.
Uganda’s information and communication technology (ICT) Minister Dr Ham Mulira, who chaired a meeting of eleven communication ministers and representatives from SADC and East Africa at an OR Tambo International Airport hotel on Monday, said although it been a bumpy ride along the way, the ministers had tackled and resolved many of the issues around the prospective cable project.
They will take their resolutions to a summit in Rwanda, organised jointly by the World Bank, International Telecoms Union (ITU) and UNGAID (the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development), later this month for further discussion on implementation.
Mulira says the project is not a new one, but builds on the work put in by Nepad (then under the guise of EASSy), including the technical design of the cable and talks with suppliers.
Nepad e-Commission deputy chair Henry Chasia said the cable project would be 30% owned by a Nepad-led special purpose vehicle (SPV) and the rest by the private sector.
At least 60% of the investors in the cable would be African, but there would also be investors from countries like the US and elsewhere.
South African communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri said the experience of South Africa (with Telkom and SAT-3) and Mauritius demonstrated that an entirely private sector-led undersea cable project was like a private club deciding on its own pricing levels, to the detriment of the countries requiring affordable broadband connectivity. She said Nepad was not averse to companies making a profit, this should not be a in a way “that makes costs exorbitant”.
Director general in the department Lyndall Shope-Mafole said the Nepad-led cable would not preclude smaller operators from buying affordable capacity, even if they did not invest in the project. She said for $2m, they could lease capacity from the SPV at a very low cost.
Matsepe-Casaburrri said the majority African ownership requirement was part of the continent ensuring its independence: “Africa must take responsibility for its own development.”
Regarding its requirements for undersea cables landing in South Africa, Matsepe-Casaburri said it hoped to release its policy document on this before the end of November.
There had been some confusion around whether the country would demand majority South African or African ownership for cables landing in the country. But, Matsepe-Casaburri said cables should be majority South African and / or African owned in order to be able to land here. This was because of issues of security and independence, she said.
Chasia says Nepad has had sufficient interest in the project to believe that securing the funding will not be a problem.
He said a portion of the cable would be ready by 2009 to ensure South Africa’s readiness to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Chasia said Nepad believed a cable of this size should be a collaboration between all the operators planning to lay cables along Africa’s coastline: “We hope there will be participation from their part. This will be a very big cable going to many places, with a lot of capacity. The discussions we’ve had so far have been very encouraging.”
But this did not mean other prospective operators might not still lay their own cables. Or that investors could not invest in more than one project if they wanted to.
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