Europe-Africa-Asia submarine cable launched

["Alan Levin" <alan at afridns.org>]

> FYI
>
> http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/telecoms/2002/0205271141.asp?O=E
>
>
>       Europe-Africa-Asia submarine cable launched
>
>
>
>       BY PHILLIP DE WET, ITWEB NEWS EDITOR
>
>             READ IN THIS STORY:
>
>            Feeling the benefits
>            African renaissance beats Africa ONE
>
>
>
>       [Dakar, Senegal | ITWeb, 27 May 2002] - The SAT-3/WASC/SAFE undersea
> fibre optic cable, which links Europe to Asia via Cape Town, was
officially
> inaugurated in the West African capital of Dakar, Senegal, today.
>
>
>                   Capacity
>
>                   The throughput of the cable is determined by the
capacity
> of dry-land equipment, located at the landing stations. Because of the
cost
> of high-throughput equipment, these stations will not be equipped to
exploit
> the cable fully until such capacity is required. The table below
illustrates
> the throughput in various phases for traffic out of SA.
>
>
>
>                        SAT-3/WASC
>                        SAFE
>
>                         Initial capacity
>                        20Gbps
>                        10Gbps
>
>                         Planned phase two
>                        40Gbps
>                        30Gbps
>
>                         Ultimate capacity of cable
>                        120Gbps
>                        130Gbps
>
>
>                   The SAT-2 cable between SA and Europe is currently fully
> utilised at 1Gbps.
>
>
>       The 28 800km cable is a combination of two distinct projects, the
> South African/Far East (SAFE) cable, which connects Cape Town to India and
> Malaysia via Mauritius, and the SAT-3/West African Submarine Cable (WASC),
> which links Portugal to SA, with landing points in eight African countries
> along the way.
>
>       The two cables meet at Melkbosstrand in the Cape, with a second
South
> African landing point at Mtunzini off the east coast of SA.
>
>       Telkom initiated the $639 million, three-year process of laying the
> cable and setting up landing points. It contributed around $85 million to
> the project, but owns a proportionally larger 16% of the consortium that
> owns the cable, and will have access to a third of its capacity.
>
>       "We have indefeasible rights of use to 30%, the single largest
access
> to capacity in the group," says Telkom CEO Sizwe Nxasana.
>
>       The rest of the consortium is made up of 35 African, European,
> American and Asian telecommunications operators and countries.
>
>       Feeling the benefits
>
>       Today's launch, hosted by Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade at the
> landing point in this country and attended by communications minister Ivy
> Matsepe-Casaburri, is the first ceremony around the completion of the
cable.
> The Eastern length is to get its own launch in June, with planned
> participation from president Thabo Mbeki.
>
>
>                   Cable owners
>
>                   Angola Telecom
>                   AT&T
>                   Belgacom S.A.
>                   BT Global Network Services
>                   Cable & Wireless Global Networks
>                   Cameroon Telecommunications
>                   China Telecom
>                   Chunghwa Telecom
>                   Cote d'Ivoire Telecom
>                   Cyprus Telecommunications Authority
>                   Deutsche Telekom
>                   France Telecom
>                   Ghana Telecommunications
>                   Global One Communications
>                   Itissalat Al Maghrib
>                   Korea Telecom
>                   KPN Royal Dutch Telecom
>                   Marconi Portugal
>                   Mauritius Telecom
>                   MCI Worldcom International
>                   Nigerian Telecommunications
>                   OPT Benin
>                   OPT Gabon
>                   Reach
>                   Singapore Telecommunications
>                   Societe Nationale des Telecommunications du Senegal
>                   Sprint Communications
>                   Swisscom
>                   Telecom Italia
>                   Telecom Namibia
>                   Telefonica de Espana
>                   Teleglobe USA
>                   Telekom Malaysia Berhad
>                   Telkom SA
>                   Communications Authority of Thailand
>                   Videsh Sanchar Nigam India
>
>
>       However, the cable has already passed its first test-by-fire, and
> South African businesses and consumers have felt its impact on pricing
since
> January.
>
>       "The cable, for all intents and purposes, is functional," says
Telkom
> chief technology officer Reuben September. And during a failure of another
> cable connecting Europe and Asia, it carried live traffic as the fail-over
> route, as part of its capacity has been designated.
>
>       The increase in bandwidth the cable brings (Telkom will take up
> 2.5Gbps on it initially) will see a decrease in the price of international
> voice and data traffic from and to SA. However, Telkom says it anticipated
> this when it changed its tariffs in January, and the savings have already
> been transferred to its customers.
>
>       "We lowered our international tariffs for data and voice in a direct
> correlation to what we saw bandwidth costing us," says September.
>
>       African renaissance beats Africa ONE
>
>       The project came in around R400 million over budget and a year late.
> The cable was initially scheduled to be switched on in the first quarter
of
> 2001, then in December, but technical and political problems saw delays
and
> costs mounting.
>
>       "It [the consortium of owners] is a structure that works by
>  consensus," says Nxasana.
>
>       Yet the project is, and will be, held up as an example of the
African
> renaissance at work. Forty-six percent of the owning consortium is in the
> hands of African operators or governments. As such, they expect to reap
both
> telecommunications and financial rewards over its 20-year lifetime.
>
>       They also expect immediate savings on dollar payments to European
and
> American operators. The consortium estimates that $300 million that was
paid
> by its members to switch traffic on other continents, sometimes traffic
> between two neighbouring African countries, will now stay in Africa.
>
>       A feasibility study is currently underway to determine if the cable
> can be extended up the East coast of the continent, to Ethiopia and
beyond,
> and should be completed in three months. If the plan is approved the final
> cable would virtually encircle the continent, which is exactly the goal of
> the American Africa ONE consortium. The private group planned such a cable
> at a cost of $1.6 billion. It was due for completion this year but the
> project seems to have stalled before garnering the needed investment, and
> even if it should start laying down cable this year, it is conservatively
> estimated that it will take two years to complete.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


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