SEACOM says undersea cable will spur Africa investment

JOHANNESBURG – Fibre-optic cable investment in rural and landlocked African countries could be made possible if SEACOM’s plan to bring access to low-cost bandwidth succeeds, the chief executive of SEACOM said.

SEACOM commercially launched its fibre optic cable yesterday in South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique, linking Africa to Europe and Asia.Herlihy said the cable was fundamental in unlocking the continent’s high-speed Internet potential.The 17 000 km cable, known as SEACOM and operated by a Mauritius-registered private equity venture, is offering broadband speeds of up to 1,28 terabits per second, fast enough to stream high-definition TV.’We keep saying that we are going to connect Africa to the world … It’s important Africa starts saying we have information that we want to export to the world,’ Herlihy said.SEACOM entered into a technical partnership with network equipment maker Cisco Systems to demonstrate the potential of the cable.A high-definition broadcast of a speech by Tanzania’s president was to be broadcast live yesterday from Tanzania to Italy on a broadband platform based on Cisco Internet protocol technology at one-gigabit-per-second. The company will explore further partnerships with Cisco, Herlihy said.SEACOM says its cable will increase productivity as workers start to access information through fast broadband.’Because of SEACOM, Barclays is now overhauling its entire IT system throughout Africa to be 100 per cent integrated to their global IT infrastructure,’ he said.He said SEACOM was enabling telecoms firms in Africa to invest in national fibre cable networks and WiMax networks, adding that it was difficult in east Africa to invest in those networks under a satellite regime.’No one was going to invest in fibre-optic cable in (landlocked countries) … but now investors can,’ said Herlihy.Asked about SEACOM’s break-even point, Herlihy said the company was confident of creating shareholder value.’We always look at a five-year horizon on return on investments,’ he said, but did not disclose pre-sales figures signed with its customers. -Nampa-Reuters