Undersea cable battle
Various new undersea cable systems are in the pipeline and all these projects are aiming to bring more bandwidth into South Africa from the rest of the world. These include projects from Seacom, EASSy, Infraco and Nepad.
Seacom
Seacom is the most likely project to be the first to bring competition to Telkom, who currently has firm control over international bandwidth through the SAT3/SAFE system. Seacom is already building their cable as they completed one of the vital first steps – a marine survey – last year.
Seacom has further announced their pricing structure and operational deadline – 17 June 2009 – something which none of its competitors have or can do at this stage.
There have been questions as to whether Government’s requirements to land undersea cables in South Africa may be a hindrance to Seacom, but as the system is 76.5% African owned and functions on open access principles it is hard to see how the Department of Communications can prevent it from landing.
EASSy
The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), the oldest project, alerted the media towards the end of last year that construction of the cable will start towards the middle of December, but the project seems to have hit yet another snag.
When EASSy was quizzed about construction, project managers simply said that they would not like to comment on either the construction of the cable nor the project’s progress. The project has been dogged by continual delays since inception, and questions about EASSy’s future have been raised by industry experts.
Market speculation is that Alcatel Lucent has increased its construction costs for EASSy, creating yet another area of concern. It is further speculated that various new deadlines were missed which made some shareholders look at other options.
With Seacom already off the ground and making promises of vast amounts of bandwidth at very competitive rates – far cheaper than EASSy’s early estimates – the project faces a very tough road ahead to ensure continual support and funding.
Infraco
Another cable system, this time lead by South Africa’s Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) through Infraco, is planned on the West Coast of Africa. According to some sources the DPE has been discussing the new project with industry players, trying to gain support for the system.
A West Coast cable system is definitely necessary, even though Seacom will bring more affordable bandwidth to the South African market, since SAT3 capacity is fast running out while the need for bandwidth in West African countries is increasing all the time.
According to a reliable source a marine survey has already been done, and the DPE looks well prepared to start rolling out its planned cable system.
Department of Communications & Nepad
The most ambitious project comes from the Nepad e-Africa Commission who is promoting a monstrous $2bn system that aims to encircle Africa. It will have a capacity of 3.8 Tbps.
The Department of Communications is punting this project and trying to garner support from industry but funding remains sketchy and with many other far more affordable projects, the DoC may face an uphill battle to secure financial commitments from telecoms companies.
The Minister of Communications, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, recently said that their current focus is on the construction of a cable system on the West Cost of Africa, but that both an East Coast and a West cable are being planned.
According to Matsepe-Casaburri there was interest from all communications companies, fixed line and mobile, in the cable, and added that Telkom was very interested.
It is not clear whether Seacom and Infraco will form part of Nepad’s undersea cable plans.
Landing rights conundrum
The policy for the conditions for when an international cable system may land remains very patchy, but Matsepe-Casaburri did give basic feedback on this issue.
When a journalist recently asked about whether South Africa would ‘not want to invest in the undersea cable unless it had a majority stake’, Matsepe-Casaburri replied that she did not know where the story about investment in the undersea cable emanated, and added that without the involvement of the South African government the project would not be possible.
The Minister of Communications further said that a number of foreign companies wanted to land cables in South Africa and that a decision had been taken that one of the requirements would be that there must be a majority South African or African stake.
It is not clear what the other requirements are, but it is assumed that the Nepad ‘principles’ like non-discriminatory open access to the cable system will come into play.
Loading ...