Telkom prepares for SAT-3 competition, denies capacity problems
Telkom’s SAT-3 monopoly will expire in November and they have publicly declared that they are preparing for competition. Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri recently announced the end of Telkom’s SAT-3 monopoly in her annual budget speech in parliament recently.
According to Matsepe-Casaburri, 1 November 2007 will be the date where all exclusivity provisions contained in the SAT-3 agreements shall be declared null and void in South Africa.
ICASA has been given the task of ensuring that all facilities connected to the submarine cable be declared essential facilities, effectively allowing other SAT-3 shareholders to get direct access to the submarine cable to bring international bandwidth to South African companies.
Telkom’s CEO Reuben September said that he expects competition in the international fiber bandwidth arena when this policy directive from the Department of Communications takes effect, and added that Telkom is preparing for a more competitive market.
Neotel, through VSNL, is a SAT-3 consortium partner and will therefore be well positioned to provide companies with a complete international bandwidth solution.
“Neotel applauds the initiatives on international connectivity taken by the Minister in these policy directives, and will certainly seek to take advantage of the resulting changes in the market,” they said.
Capacity problems
There have been rumours that SAT3 will run into capacity problems as soon as 2009, a rumour that Telkom plays down.
Telkom said that the SAT-3 and SAFE submarine cables were recently upgraded to 120 Gb/s and 90 Gb/s respectively and that further upgrades are technically viable.
“These cables constitute a complex network and the utilisation is continuously monitored and plans executed to avoid the occurrence of any bottle necks or capacity shortfall. The current capacity growth rate depicts that a next upgrade of these cables will be required during 2008/9,” Telkom said.
Telkom said that they have started embarking on projects such as the EASSy cable to bring additional capacity into the SA market.
Various international submarine cable projects are currently on the cards for South Africa, including EASSy, SEACOM and the InfraCo West Coast project.
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