Skip to content

African Undersea Cables Update – Jun09

When I first started a map of planned African undersea cable initiatives in early 2008, I never dreamt that I might start running out of space to put cables on the map.  Yet, there it is.   Over 11 terabits/s of capacity coming to the continent if they all manifest themselves.

And then when the global credit crisis reared its ugly head, I thought we would see some of the cables quietly disappear.  But no, the planned capacity just keeps going up.

Well, not entirely true.  MainOne annouced last week that they had secured 66 million USD in financing for their initiative but what they failed to highlight (and which is still not reflected on their website) is that they have scaled back their aspirations from a 14,000km cable to South Africa back to a 7,000km cable to Lagos.

That change would have put West Africa, as far as Lagos, at the peak of planned capacity with over 8 terabits/s compared to less than 7 terabits/s planned to reach South Africa and about 4 terabits/s headed for East Africa.  But with France Telecom’s announcement two days ago that they are extending their ACE cable to South Africa and that it’s planned capacity was 1.92 terabits/s, that put South Africa back in front with planned capacity now looking like about 8.5 terabits/s.

Given that the whole of South Africa now uses less than 120 Gb/s, big changes are on the way starting with the Seacom cable lighting up in about two weeks time.  Don’t expect instant discounts though.  ISPSs will be cutting over and testing from July on into September.  I think the first big price changes will start to occur in late September, early October.

Post Views: 87

14 thoughts on “African Undersea Cables Update – Jun09”

  1. Pingback: Map and Stats for Africa’s Undersea Internet Cables | White African

  5. Ambrose

    Excellent work keep us updated!! We appreciate!

    Sounds to me like you need to make the cables thinner than the real fibre optic to fit them on the map 😉

  6. John T

    Steve, re Undersea Cables: do you have data on the committed “lit” capacity, as the cited cable capacities are presumably ultimate capacities (as is usually the case in all announcements); the significance being that it is the cost of opto-electronics that ‘lights’ the fibre that determines how much gets lit and what unit prices are offered.

  7. Steve Song

    Hi John. For the cables that will land this year, Seacom and TEAMs, I believe that Seacom will initially be lighting up 80Gb and TEAMs will light 120Gb. As for the other cables, I have heard nothing.

  13. Arthur J Mukembo

    Interesting updates and perspectives these. At about 14:00 today, I attended the ‘Ready for Service’ launch of Seacom in Kampala and had a chance to use the fiber-backed connectivity. It was impressive given what I’m used to experiencing while in Africa.

    The biggest disappointment is the EASSy cable. A majority African venture, if I recall, the first to be mentioned, its failed to live up to expectations!

    Thank you for tracking the progress of these cables. We’ll keep you posted on when those price changes take effect. Mean time, watch Infocom Uganda and KDN, Kenya.

  14. Ian D. Samson

    Now that Seacom is here and WACS is around the corner, bandwidth and line speed costs ought to start dropping since we have already paid for the infrastructure, but I will not hold my breath as corporate profiteering continues to bleed us all dry. I am fed-up that the most expensive package in the UK for 50Mbps broadband and unlimited bandwidth costs a mere £18 a month (that’s R227.00) compared with the more than R3000 a month (£238) charged by South African companies for 4Mbps broadband and God-knows what cap.

    It’s despicable! We deserve and demand that ISPs stop profiteering and give the subscribers a break.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.