Africa, India to explore undersea telecom cable

JOHANNESBURG – Africa and India are due to explore merging two undersea telecoms cable projects, a forum of Indian and South African business leaders heard yesterday.

African countries are seeking to build the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), but squabbling has delayed the launch of the project. A separate Indian project is bringing an undersea telecoms cable to Europe and efforts are underway to link the two, Andile Ngcaba, chairman of the South African unit of IT group Dimension Data, told the India South Africa CEOs Forum.”We’re trying to put together a project that can bring these two undersea cables together,” he said.”If we can manage to do this, we will probably be the (operator of the) second biggest joint cable in the world, after AT&T.”The EASSy cable, expected to cut Internet costs to nearly one third of current levels over the next five years and to stimulate investment, has been delayed by bickering mainly between South Africa and Kenya over funding and access costs.Ngcaba did not give details of the Indian cable.Indian company Reliance Communications Ltd inaugurated its Falcon submarine cable on September 5 as part of its Flag Telecom Global Network running through 35 countries.Another Indian company, conglomerate Tata Group, owns 26 per cent of Neotel, South Africa’s recently-launched second national fixed phone operator.On August 24, Tata said its telecoms unit Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd would spend US$600 million to build two new submarine cables between India and Europe and Asia.Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata is co-chairman of the CEOs forum.Ngcaba is co-head of the information technology committee of the CEOs forum, linked to the visit to South Africa of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who began a four-day state visit on Saturday.India and South Africa, two of the world’s leading emerging markets, are keen to boost trade links and expand investments in areas such as telecommunications, textiles and pharmaceuticals.Bilateral trade between the two countries reached US$4 billion during 2005/2006 and both nations say they want to treble that figure by 2010.Nampa-ReutersA separate Indian project is bringing an undersea telecoms cable to Europe and efforts are underway to link the two, Andile Ngcaba, chairman of the South African unit of IT group Dimension Data, told the India South Africa CEOs Forum.”We’re trying to put together a project that can bring these two undersea cables together,” he said.”If we can manage to do this, we will probably be the (operator of the) second biggest joint cable in the world, after AT&T.”The EASSy cable, expected to cut Internet costs to nearly one third of current levels over the next five years and to stimulate investment, has been delayed by bickering mainly between South Africa and Kenya over funding and access costs.Ngcaba did not give details of the Indian cable.Indian company Reliance Communications Ltd inaugurated its Falcon submarine cable on September 5 as part of its Flag Telecom Global Network running through 35 countries.Another Indian company, conglomerate Tata Group, owns 26 per cent of Neotel, South Africa’s recently-launched second national fixed phone operator.On August 24, Tata said its telecoms unit Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd would spend US$600 million to build two new submarine cables between India and Europe and Asia.Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata is co-chairman of the CEOs forum.Ngcaba is co-head of the information technology committee of the CEOs forum, linked to the visit to South Africa of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who began a four-day state visit on Saturday.India and South Africa, two of the world’s leading emerging markets, are keen to boost trade links and expand investments in areas such as telecommunications, textiles and pharmaceuticals.Bilateral trade between the two countries reached US$4 billion during 2005/2006 and both nations say they want to treble that figure by 2010.Nampa-Reuters