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

Somalia Telecoms

There is no national telecommunications operator in Somalia - the telephone network was completely destroyed during the war. Currently there are about 25000 lines in the capital, Mogadishu.

Phone Service

• Barakat,
• Astel
• Nationlink

Hormuud

• Hormuud Telecom Inc.[HorTel] claimed to bethe leading telecommunication services provider in the southern Somalia.
• Hormuud Telecom Inc. owns and operates a telecommunication network covering the entire territories of the southern Somalia; it provides national and international telephone services.
• HorTel is a privately owned company that was established in April 2002, in Somali capital, Mogadishu.
• HormTel has its headquarters in Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia,
• Provides fixed and mobile solutions to its customers.

Internet: Somalia was the last country in Africa to obtain a local Internet service.

• Barakat, Astel Nationlink -- joined forces to form an ISP called the Somali Internet Company. The service links to the Internet at 128 kilobits per second via a satellite link from ArabSat.

Somali Telecom Group (STG) Recently the Somali Telecom Group (STG) was formed.

• Having no recognized government in the country means there are no licenses awarded or needed, and STG was recently able to negotiate direct access with Intelsat.
• STG has a presence in all sectors of the telecom industry - ISP, GSM and fixed lines.
• Cities served: Ba'adweyn, Berbera, Bosaso, Burao, Burtinle, Erigabo, Galkiao, Garowe, Goldogob, Hargeisa
• Suite B-803, Baniyas Complex
• Al Nasir Square,
• Deira, Dubai
• P.O. Box 39130
• Tel: (+9714) 229 - 2117/8
• Fax (+9714) 229 - 2119
• Email: info@stg.ae
• Web Site: www.stg.ae

Africa Telecom Business News Update 7-23-07

Maghreb
West Africa
North Africa
East Africa
Southern Africa
Submarine Cable Projects

Essay Project Getting Bogged Down

SEACOM is a competing submarine cable system, and is moving ahead while African government bureaucracies try and to take over Essay.

I think this is good news...I was wondering how long the Hippo would allow the Elephant to stay in the water.

Turning loose private enterprise to do large projects is something that Many African Countries find inconceivable. So as the rush for Bandwidth comes to Africa, it is an instinctive reaction for governments to try and control it, instead of try and regulate it.

Therefore, Essay can take up the Hippos attention, while SEACOM passes on through the river and gets the project done. When all the Bandwidth arrives, the private market will then work to get prices down and efficiency up, and flood Africa with innovation.

Read the Following article that illustrates the governmental Hippo's reaction the Private Enterprise Elephant...

-Editor

SEACOM – a planned undersea fiber optic cable system on the East coast of Africa - has recently announced that Tyco Telecommunications have begun a marine survey on the route to connect South and East Africa to global networks in India, the Middle East and Europe.

They also announced that the cable will be operational by the first quarter of 2009, a similar time frame for the alternative East Coast cable - EASSy. But while EASSy seems increasingly bogged down by political interference, SEACOM is forging ahead with a business-as-usual focus.

SEACOM plans to sell ‘cheap bandwidth’ that will encourage volume discounts and large bandwidth growth. The SEA Cable System is being designed with a nominal capacity of 1 280 Gb/s comprised of two fiber pairs which are expected to connect South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania and Kenya to India and Europe.

According to the Financial Times, new fiber links can drive down the current price of one megabit per second of bandwidth in East Africa. The current prices range from between US 7,500 and US 12,000 a month, the new cable system is expected to lower prices to between US 500 and US 800 a month.

SEACOM is however only one of many East African cable projects in the pipeline, others include EASSy, TEAMS, Flag and the Nepad Broadband Network Project. Of these EASSy is enjoying the most attention in South Africa with various parties pinning their hopes on this open access system to bring down the price of international bandwidth.

EASSy struggling

But while SEACOM seems to be making good progress, EASSy – which started back in 2003 - is increasingly becoming entangled in the web of political interference.

In a recent Communications Portfolio Committee briefing on the Nepad protocol, Lyndall Shope-Mafole, Director General of the Department of Communications, was questioned on EASSy and its compliance with the NEPAD system.

The Department of Communications said that EASSy did not conform to the NEPAD ICT Network Protocol.

According to official transcripts Shope-Mafole further said that a meeting had taken place to inform Telkom that the EASSy cable could not land on South African soil. This came after a group of African telecommunications companies, including Telkom SA, MTN (Uganda) and VSNL International signed construction and maintenance agreements for the EASSy Cable.
Shope-Mafole’s statement raises questions as to EASSy’s future potential as an alternative to the SAT3/SAFE system.

The Nepad Broadband Infrastructure Network - a consortium of African governments that broke away from EASSy after disputes over control of the project (from Financial Times) – also does not seem to be making much progress.

EASSy is still being bantered around as the solution to SA’s international connectivity problems but it may just be SEACOM that comes to the fore and provides the bandwidth needed for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.


The Rest @ MYADSL

Naibia Telecom

Country Information

• Country Demographic Information
• Latest Namibia News

Telecom Profile

• Telecom Statistics
• Telcom Namibia website

Of note:

South Africa occupied the German colony of South-West Africa during World War I and administered it as a mandate until after World War II, when it annexed the territory. In 1966 the Marxist South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) guerrilla group launched a war of independence for the area that was soon named Namibia, but it was not until 1988 that South Africa agreed to end its administration in accordance with a UN peace plan for the entire region. Namibia won its independence in 1990 and has been governed by SWAPO since. Hifikepunye POHAMBA was elected president in November 2004 in a landslide victory replacing Sam NUJOMA who led the country during its first 14 years of self rule.

• Christian 80% to 90% (Lutheran 50% at least), indigenous beliefs 10% to 20%
• English 7% (official), Afrikaans common language of most of the population and about 60% of the white population, German 32%, indigenous languages 1% (includes Oshivambo, Herero, Nama)

Zimbabwe to Require ISPs to Monitor all Emails

Zimbabwean internet service providers (ISPs) have come out in opposition of a new bill that requires them to monitor all emails and other Web communications.

The new Interception of Communications Bill will allow government to monitor all forms of communication, including post, phonecalls, instant messages and emails.
The Zimbabwean government has likened the law to anti-terror laws in effect in the US and the UK.

According to a BBC article, the bill has still to be passed by the senate, but this is merely "seen as a formality".

The Rest @ Tectonica

Nokia Investing in Africa

We are doing that exactly as I speak in Africa, coming to the new markets earlier than the competition," Kallasvuo said during a Webcast of an investor conference.

"Things are also starting to happen in a major way in Africa." he said. "We are seeing things in Africa now that we saw in China seven or eight years ago."The executive did not say which African countries Nokia saw as the biggest opportunities.

Research firm Gartner said earlier this week that growth in countries such as South Africa and Egypt as key drivers behind a 6 percent increase in phone sales in Europe, Middle East and Africa in the first quarter.

The Rest @ Mobil Africa