Light at the end of the broadband tunnel
If there has been one subject in the telecommunications arena that has claimed a substantial amount of space in publications, it must be the lack of affordable international broadband connection. Despite all the noise from the Department of Trade and Industry that Telkom’s monopoly on SAT 3 will be challenged and ended, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer with the SEACOM project.
The construction of SEACOM’s 15 000 km fibre optic undersea cable, linking South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia to India and Europe, remains firmly on schedule to become the first cable to link east Africa to the rest of the world. The June 2009 switch-on date is on schedule
Over the past three months, a number of major milestones were reached including the groundbreaking at the cable station landing sites in Mozambique and Kenya. Construction has started in Maputo and installation of prefabricated cable station buildings has commenced. In Mombasa, foundations are beginning for similar prefabricated stations, which are ready for installation on site in December.
These containerised cable station modules were shipped from New Jersey to Africa in September. The remaining cable stations for South Africa and Tanzania are on the way. All of SEACOM’s high-performance submarine transmission equipment has been shipped from the factories and is also on its way to the cable stations. In addition, the first teams of technical staff for the east African landing stations have been selected and will begin training this month.
Nearly 90% of the SEACOM cable has been manufactured. The first load of assembled cable and repeaters is on its way to the region in Tyco Telecommunications’ ship, “CS Tyco Reliance”. Installation is scheduled to start soon.
Loading of the second shipload of cable will begin later this month and will head towards Africa early in 2009. The third and final shipload of cable and repeaters will follow shortly thereafter. The entire SEACOM network will connect all cable sections together off the horn of Africa in the second quarter of 2009. Testing of the system will then be completed before the commercial launch in June 2009.
Brian Herlihy, president of SEACOM said: “The project is progressing in-line with our manufacturing and deployment schedules and we remain firmly on-track to go live in June 2009. We are particularly pleased with the recent groundbreakings in Kenya and Mozambique. This important milestone gives SEACOM a land-based footprint that will allow Tyco Telecommunications, our turnkey project contractor, to install the high-speed optical transmission equipment at these sites soon.
“With only eight months to go before the system is ready for service, SEACOM remains set to be the first cable to connect east and southern Africa to the rest of the world with plentiful and inexpensive bandwidth.”
SEACOM, which is privately funded and over three quarters African-owned, will assist communication carriers in south and east Africa through the sale of wholesale international capacity to global networks via India and Europe. The undersea fibre optic cable system will provide African retail carriers with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth, removing the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting east and southern African economic growth. SEACOM will be the first cable to provide broadband to countries in east Africa which, at the moment, rely entirely on satellite connections.
Lower cost of international bandwidth
The projected prices look promising. Depending on volume, the cost is expected to be anywhere between $45 and $117 per megabit per month, some 10 times lower than current rates. The question of what the South African consumer will be paying for broadband will largely depend on the telecommunication and service providers. They can set their own prices. In a competitive environment that should result in lowering the cost of telecommunication.
SEACOM has said that it will reduce the cost of international bandwidth for universities and research institutions in South Africa by 5 000%. To put this figure in perspective: it amounts to 50 times the amount of bandwidth for the price currently paid to Telkom by the university network, Tenet.
The bandwidth that these institutions will have after June next year is almost equal to that currently available to the entire South African population. Furthermore, after six years, the institutions will own the capacity for the remaining life of the cable, resulting in huge annual savings. SEACOM has extended the below-cost bandwidth offer to the alliance of Southern and Eastern African Universities called uBuntuNet, further enhancing inter-university co-operation.
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