EASSy enters commercial service

Dr. Angus Hay, CTO of Neotel, today announces on behalf of the EASSy Cable Management Committee that the EASSy system has entered commercial service since 30th July 2010.

Following the completion of the construction of EASSy in April 2010, the system owners have carried out testing to ensure that the system meets the highest international standards.

“We are confident that this is the most reliable system serving the African continent,” said Mr. Jacques van der Walt, Chairman of the Procurement Group responsible for technical aspects of EASSy.

EASSy was constructed under a turnkey contract by Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN). The system uses technology capable of delivering 3.84 Terabits per second, making EASSy the largest capacity submarine cable system serving Africa.

With ten landing points in Mtunzini, Maputo, Toliary, Moroni, Dar es Salaam, Mombasa, Mogadishu, Djibouti city, Berbera, and Port Sudan, EASSy currently provides the most extensive reach on the East African coast and provides onwards global connectivity through multiple interconnect points.

EASSy Chairman, Trevor Martins, proudly stated that “The system was delivered on time, under budget, with a much higher design capacity, whilst achieving exceptional collaboration amongst African operators.”

“The EASSy system offers customers the most resilient and lowest latency technical solution for services from Africa to Europe and beyond. Furthermore, the EASSy owners’ funding structure ensures the most sustainable and financially secure submarine cable business model.”

“The presence of multiple investors and participants in EASSy ensures open competition resulting in benefits to the market as a whole as can be seen in South Africa, by the participation of operator investors being MTN, Neotel, Telkom and Vodacom”, stated Prince Radebe, Telkom SA EASSy representative.

The system’s abundant broadband capacity will be available for the use of numerous countries in Africa over the next 25 years.

“This plentiful and high quality capacity will deliver significant commercial and developmental benefits to end users, operators and governments in Africa. EASSy delivery at this time introduces a significant competitive element in the broadband capacity market in the region that will additionally ensure affordable rates to end users,” said Samson Matibini, the EASSy Financial & Administration Subcommittee Chairperson.

Mr. Chris Wood, CEO of WIOCC, the largest investor in EASSy representing 14 telecommunications operators in Africa added that access to EASSy by all countries in the region is embedded within the philosophies upon which EASSy was funded.

“The EASSy investment model that was agreed sometime back with the involvement of key stakeholders including Development Banking Institutions (DFIs) did not only deliver full funding for EASSy but also assured key development and competitive principles such as open access even for those countries that had no investor representation in EASSy. We are proud to mention that in addition to the original investors in WIOCC, Libya, Seychelles and Zimbabwe have also joined WIOCC as investors.

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