EASSy Cable costs more per Kilometer the SEACOM

Kenya: Eassy Investors to Pay More for Fibre Optic Cable

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Business Daily (Nairobi)

17 August 2007Posted to the web 16 August 2007

Okuttah Mark

Investors in the South Africa-fronted undersea fibre optic cable will pay the highest price for its construction, signalling the fact that accessing it may cost as much.
Telecommunications experts said construction of the East African Submarine System (EASSy) will cost investors Sh2,000 more per kilometre than the building of East African Marines System (TEAMS) and private sector-driven SEACOM.

People familiar with the matter told the Business Daily that while the laying of the EASSy undersea cable has been priced at $26,161 per kilometre, TEAMS and SEACOM will spend only $23,275 and $23, 076 per kilometre espectively.
The high cost of constructing EASSy is seen to be particularly burdensome to investors because the project managers recently declined a co-building offer from SEACOM- the South African firm that plans to build an undersea cable along the same route.
Such a partnership would have allowed each party to own individual fibre pairs on the desired route while making significant saving through sharing of key facilities such as repeaters, landing and power stations.

Senior telecoms industry officials have previously indicated that it would cost EASSy customers $500 mega bites a month in bandwidth- more than twice the cost of bandwidth in India where the cost stands at $200 mega bites a month.

Simon Olawo of the EASSy secretariat says the cost of laying out cables is mainly determined by the distance covered, equipment installed, the number of landing stations and tax payable to respective governments.

Plans by EASSy initiative to construct and operate a submarine fibre optic cable along the Eastern coast of Africa has faced a number of hurdles, including disagreement over the mode of access.

The cable, which will cover the longest distance, is expected to have an initial equipped capacity of 20 gegabits per second and an ultimate capacity of 320 gegabits/second. It will run from South Africa to Sudan through Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya, Somali and Djibouti.
TEAMS, a partnership between the Kenya government and the United Arab Emirates telecom company Etisalat, will connect Mombasa to Fujairah in the Gulf of Oman. The total cost of the project that is expected to be complete by end of next year is $110 million.

The Government has 40 per cent stake in the project while Etisalat has 20, leaving the other 40 per cent to local private investors. During this year's budget, the Government allocated Sh1billion for the project and has been on an agressive hunt for private investors.

The International submarine cable industry has been growing at unprecedented pace. Several projects are under way, with two being undertaken between US and China while the other is between US and Australia- with three projects for Africa and two from the Caribbean to US.
With ongoing number of projects and taking into account that only three companies have the ability to manufacture and construct the cables, namely Alcatel, NEC and Tyco, meeting aggressive time line for some of the project such as Teams might be difficult.

Business Daily (Nairobi)

World BVank IFC invests in EaSSy Submarine Cable Project

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank's International Finance Corp. on Thursday said it was investing $32.5 million in a fiber-optic cable project that will provide Internet and international communication services for 21 African countries.

IFC, the private-sector arm of the World Bank that focuses on investing in emerging-market economies, said the cable project should improve telecommunications access for 250 million Africans and cut costs for individuals and businesses.

The project, called the East African Submarine Cable System, is to run 10,000 kilometers from the continent's southern tip to the African horn. It will connect South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan.

Another 13 countries will share the system through land links. They are Botswana, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Mohsen Khalil, IFC's director of global information and communications technologies, said in an interview the project's total cost will be $235 million and said it is a cooperative effort between private and public interests designed to ensure that prices do not fall under monopoly control and rise.

"Consumers along the east coast of Africa typically pay between $200 and $300 a month for Internet access," the IFC said. "As a result of this project, prices for international connectivity will drop by two-thirds at the outset and the number of subscribers will triple."

Some 26 telecommunications operators will be partners in the cable and most of them are African firms, Khalil said.

Construction is to start within weeks and the cable is scheduled to be in operation by early 2009.

The Rest @ Reuters Africa

EaSSy unlikely to land in South Africa

US 700m sea cable to cut Web costs
Thabiso Mochiko Business Report
01 August, 2007
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SA's new submarine cable could be the answer to bandwidth capacity
South Africa is planning a $700 million (R5 billion) submarine cable to cut the costs of accessing high-speed internet. The cable, to run from Durban to South America and London, will increase international bandwidth capacity.
The initiative is being driven by the department of public enterprises as an international leg of Infraco, the state-owned broadband infrastructure firm formed last year to lease capacity exclusively to Neotel for four years. But the international part of Infraco will be open to other telecoms firms including Telkom, which is said to be interested in a big slice of the project.
Due to the lack of undersea cables, Africa has mainly relied on the Sat3 cable that is partly owned by Telkom.
Sat3 members have exploited this by charging huge fees, which has led to strong criticism from the government as the high costs deterred foreign investments and led to slow internet roll-out in rural areas. Sat3 will compete with Infraco's west coast cable.
With the huge demand of internet bandwidth and the expected demand from the 2010 soccer World Cup, South Africa needs a cable system that offers high capacity as Sat3 could be running out of capacity.
Department director-general Portia Molefe said the goal was to have one leg of the Infraco submarine, likely in Brazil, running by 2009. The project would be funded by the private sector and the government.
Running parallel with the Infraco cable is the controversial Nepad Broadband, focussing on the east region. The Nepad Broadband was established after a fallout between the South African and Kenyan governments when they built the $280 million East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy).
EASSy was expected to run from KwaZulu-Natal to Port Sudan, with landings in seven countries. The tiff, which was over a cost-based model and open access initiated by South Africa, led to Kenya and South Africa forming new cable projects separate from EASSy.

But the EASSy cable is unlikely to land in South Africa. Lyndall Shope-Mafole, director-general at the department of communications, said EASSy was not a priority for the government as it did not contribute to its development. "I am not saying we will bar [EASSy], but we will have guidelines for companies that want to land in South Africa."

The Rest @ My ADSL News

Essay Project seems on Track

Johannesburg, 4 June 2007 ] - With the imminent construction of the East African Submarine Cable System (Eassy), the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) has “tentatively” set aside $40 million for project participants

DBSA ICT specialist George Finger says the final amount the bank will provide as investment funding to Eassy participants will depend on how much other investors, such as the African Development Bank and the World Bank, are willing to invest in the project, he says.

“The bank's investment in Eassy can go up or down, depending on how much appetite for risk the other financiers have.”

• Meanwhile, the DBSA is developing a new strategy to give ICT investment a more regional flavour, which will see country lending caps increased, However, he explains the DBSA's 70:30 split in investments in favour of SA would change to a greater focus on regional projects.
• The investment cap for each of the countries in which the DBSA invests has also transformed in line with the changes in policy and regulatory framework, he says.“It is very difficult to state what the new caps will be.

The Rest @ IT Web

Meeting in Malawi to Iron Iron Out Differences on Submarine Cable Projects

Information and communication ministers from about 20 African countries have been invited for a special meeting that is expected to iron out controversies surrounding the ratification of the NEPAD ICT broadband network (NIBN) project.

The project includes the Eastern Africa Sub-Marine Cable System (EASSy) submarine project and Central Corridor Trade and Transport Facilitation Project. EASSy) is an initiative to connect countries of eastern Africa via a high bandwidth fibre optic cable system to the rest of the world. It is considered a milestone in the development of information infrastructure in the region (Wikipedia).

Rwandan state minister for energy and communications Albert Butare told HANA that ministers are expected to meet in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi by the end of June to try and reach a consensus on whether the project can proceed without some member countries signing the protocol.

The ratification for NIBN should be completed by June 30 2007, according to the project time schedule. There are currently disputes and no working consensus among some members over ownership of the US$280 broadband infrastructure.

The Rest @ Tectonic

Fiber Optic Project: Port Sudan to Durban

Kenya's telecommunication sector will receive a boost as a result of Sh32 billion (347 million euros) financing mobilised for infrastructure development in Africa.
The European Commission, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and nine European countries have set up a fund to finance the continent's telecommunication infrastructure.

The Infrastructure Trust Fund for Africa will back New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) projects as such as the East Africa Submarine Cable System (known as Eassy).
Financing for each project and when the money will be released has not been decided.
The 9,900 km Eassy cable is set to run from Port Sudan in the north to Durban, South Africa and will complete the fibre optic loop surrounding Africa.

The Rest @ AllAfrica.com

The Infrastructure Trust Fund for Africa created to Fund 4 Fiber Projects

Funding for all the Africa Fiber Projects appears to have been consolidated into one new organizations called The Infrastructure Trust Fund for Africa. It includes all four fiber projects.

I wonder if the fund will be used to try and control how and where it comes in first. It will be interesting to see if the African Monolpolies had a hand in this.

-Lee


Kenya's telecommunication sector will receive a boost as a result of Sh32 billion (347 million euros) financing mobilised for infrastructure development in Africa.

The European Commission, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and nine European countries have set up a fund to finance the continent's telecommunication infrastructure.

The Infrastructure Trust Fund for Africa will back New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) projects as such as the East Africa Submarine Cable System (known as Eassy).
Financing for each project and when the money will be released has not been decided.


The Rest @All Africa. com

SA Govt.-Driven Telkom tries to Find Its Place in Africa's Coming Telecom Gold Rush

Government will use its board voting power to make Telkom toe the line in participating in the East African Submarine Cable System (Eassy), says Lyndall Shope-Mafole. It will force the company to join the SPV rather than the overall consortium.

The Department of Communications director-general made this statement after delivering her department's 2007-2010 strategy to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications last week.

She also attacked the Eassy supplier contract signed on 9 March between Telkom, the network operators and equipment supplier Alcatel Lucent. She said it was outside the policy framework. The South African Government seems to believe that it will run and control the cable consortium. The private sector takes a different view and NEPAD seems to have taken the view that it can impose both its view and the rather heavy-handed governmental structure it envisages.

The Rest: Ballancing Act

Four Fiber Cable Projects are Coming Into Africa

There are four projects to build an international fibre cable to connect the east coast of Africa. There’s EASSy, the Kenyan Government’s TEAMS, Flag Telecom…and the fourth project? Sithe’s SEACOM has been working quietly on the fringes to put together a privately funded “carriers’ carrier” project. News has been filtering out about it but Sithe’s Brian Herlihy made his first public presentation of the project at a United Stated Trade Development Agency Africa conference ten days ago in San Francisco. Russell Southwood spoke to him about what SEACOM will be and how it will work.

There is much more here from Ballancing Act