Telecom and MTC join N$5,5 billion sea cable project

TELECOM Namibia and MTC have joined a multinational consortium of telecommunications operators to help fund a multimillion-dollar undersea fibre-optic cable with a length of 14 000 kilometres, to be known as West Africa Cable System (WACS).

A construction and maintenance agreement and supply contract for the implementation of the WACS was signed in Johannesburg, South Africa, last Wednesday.
WACS is a submarine fibre-optic cable that will link countries in southern Africa, West Africa and Europe with at least 3.84 terabits per second (Tbp/s) of international bandwidth.
Extending from Cape Town to the UK, planned landing points of the cable include Namibia, South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Cape Verde, Canary Islands, Portugal and the United Kingdom.
Namibia will have its own landing point at Swakopmund.
‘The landings in Namibia, the DRC, the Republic of Congo and Togo will provide the first direct connections for these countries to the global submarine cable network,’ said Telecom in a statement on Monday.
MTC, in their statement, noted that upon completion, ‘the project will provide Namibians with ten times faster Internet and more robust inter-connectivity to Europe and the rest of the world at cheaper rates.’
Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks has been contracted to supply the 14 000-km cable system with all associated landing points, which is expected to be ready for service by mid-2011.
Costing about US$600 million (about N$5,5 billion), the project has brought together a multitude of nations and some of the world’s most influential telecommunications players in a joint effort to use state-of-the-art technology in linking more people more efficiently than ever before.
The West Africa Cable System represents a significant telecommunications infrastructure investment through a joint effort of a number of African and global operators and will have ample capacity to serve the region’s international connectivity needs for many years to come.
An investment level of 9 per cent for Namibia is envisaged, with MTC contributing US$12.5 million (about N$113.8 million) towards the project.
According to MTC, this amounts to ’50 per cent of the cost to build the infrastructure to connect Namibia to the WACS in order to provide its customers Internet access comparable with first world services.’
Telecom Namibia and the Government are coming in with the other half.
According to MTC Managing Director Miguel Geraldes and the General Manager for International Services at Telecom Namibia, Wessel van der Vyver, this infrastructure would be enough to meet the demand of Namibia’s telecommunications customers for the next ten years.
‘The agreements signed make the WACS broadband sea cable a reality for us, and with it access to much cheaper, much faster fibre-optic links between countries in the south and west of the continent to the rest of the world,’ Van der Vyver said.
Other telecommunications companies that have signed the WACS agreement include Angola Telecom, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, MTN, Portugal Telecom, Sotelco, Tata Communications, Telkom SA, Togo Telecom and Vodacom.