Another submarine cable for SA
Alcatel-Lucent recently announced that it has been selected by eFive Telecoms, a black-owned and controlled investment-oriented company that was established in 2009, to build a new submarine cable network linking the West Coast of Africa to South America.
The system will be composed of two trunks – the first one connecting South Africa to Angola and Nigeria, and the second trunk linking Angola to Brazil.
According to Alcatel-Lucent this end-to-end project will further increase connectivity in Africa, deliver additional capacity for wholesale and will also enhance service and traffic protection by providing critical cable route diversity to South America.
“We believe that high-growth areas such as the African continent require the development of new projects,” said Lawrence Mulaudzi, managing director of eFive Telecoms.
“The planned submarine network will also provide cable route diversity to South America, making the most economical and operational sense in the current landscape.”
“Growth in African internet and mobile telephony is driving service providers’ demand for more connectivity options to ensure higher reliability, as well as increased widespread access to bandwidth. This project will further position Africa as a major hub for broadband connectivity,” said Philippe Dumont, head of Alcatel-Lucent’s submarine network activity.
“This selection also confirms Alcatel-Lucent’s end-to-end expertise in helping operators address the fast growth of data-intensive services and applications.”
Alcatel-Lucent will be in charge of the project end-to-end including the system design, manufacturing, installation and commissioning.
The system will also be maintained by Alcatel-Lucent through its Atlantic Private Maintenance Agreement (APMA) which currently covers over 100,000 km of critical submarine cable infrastructure from the West Coast of Africa to the Caribbean and as far north as Greenland.
The new cable system is of far more significance to South Africa than merely the SA-Brazil link. The first trunk route which will interconnect the SEACOM and Main One submarine cables will create a fully redundant ‘SEACOM-Main One’ system, similar to SAT-3/SAFE.
This new system providing connectivity via the East Coast and West Coast of Africa will mean that companies will have a wider choice of providers to serve their full international connectivity needs.
Throw EASSy and WACS into the mix and South Africa is certain to see more stable and much cheaper international bandwidth in the next two years.
Another submarine cable for SA << Comments and views
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