Undersea cable systems in SA from 1879 to 2015

lucky there were no copper thieves in 1879.....
 
Nineteen years between the first telegraph line and an undersea cable. Amazing what they were able to do with the technology available to them.
 
LaraC said:
Nineteen years between the first telegraph line and an undersea cable. Amazing what they were able to do with the technology available to them.
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Maybe they could have landed a man on the moon, who knows :p
 
With all these cables at hand, there certainly is an oversupply of bandwidth. Yet, a small proportion of the population has access to this ADSL (VDSL) and those who have, are paying in excess of R1000 a month for a decent connection and some gigs. Somewhere the capitalists are failing us.
 
Probably the most revolutionary thing to happen to the SA internet scene, was when Telkom no longer had the only way out of the country.

I am actually surprised the ANC tribe allowed it to happen. Then again they still don't really know what the internet is, so back then they probably had no idea that it was another avenue where they could ride their gravy train along.
 
There is definitely an over-supply of bandwidth in SA.... something like 13% of the outgoing capacity is used???
Yet they keep charging high prices, and throttling the links...
 
Sonic2k said:
There is definitely an over-supply of bandwidth in SA.... something like 13% of the outgoing capacity is used???
Yet they keep charging high prices, and throttling the links...
Click to expand...

I don't understand why more cables are getting laid either. Granted you see the usual names pop up with investments in these cable systems, you must remember local distribution is still Telkom/Neotel owned/leased and only where these are bypassed is the effective cost cheap.
 
Interesting that the cables are fiber pairs. I wonder what's more expensive, manufacturing 1KM of fiber or laying 1KM of fiber - if the latter, why not lay 50 pairs instead and not need to worry about bandwidth for the next 20+ years?
 
Sonic2k said:
There is definitely an over-supply of bandwidth in SA.... something like 13% of the outgoing capacity is used???
Yet they keep charging high prices, and throttling the links...
Click to expand...

International bandwidth is no longer this issue in South Africa.

It is the cost of moving data within our borders which makes up the majority of what you pay your ISP for your internet access.
 
African-Undersea-CAbles-Map-2014-header.jpg
When you visit an international website or send an email to a friend overseas, the Internet traffic is carried by submarine cable systems which connect South Africa to Europe and the United States.
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too small cant see.png
 
Necropolis said:
International bandwidth is no longer this issue in South Africa.

It is the cost of moving data within our borders which makes up the majority of what you pay your ISP for your internet access.
Click to expand...

Yup its the new excuse... when they could no longer blame the overseas cables they started to blame the IPC.
 
[XC] Oj101;15815180 said:
Interesting that the cables are fiber pairs. I wonder what's more expensive, manufacturing 1KM of fiber or laying 1KM of fiber - if the latter, why not lay 50 pairs instead and not need to worry about bandwidth for the next 20+ years?
Click to expand...
The use of pairs is for one fibre cable to transmit and the other to receive. Within each cable there are multiple fibres, e.g. 48, 72, 144, etc. and seldom are they all "lit" to perform at maximum capacity. So the idea is not necessarily more pairs of fibre cables, but bigger cables containing more fibre strands.
 
[XC] Oj101;15815180 said:
Interesting that the cables are fiber pairs. I wonder what's more expensive, manufacturing 1KM of fiber or laying 1KM of fiber - if the latter, why not lay 50 pairs instead and not need to worry about bandwidth for the next 20+ years?
Click to expand...
On long haul fibre systems it's not normally additional stands that are cost prohibitive. The cost of the amplifiers along the way is a much bigger factor in the cost. An amplifier for a small number of pairs is much easier to build and maintain under the ocean than one for hundreds of pairs.
 
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