The launch of the Seacom cable in July this year marked the beginning of a new era for internet and telecommunications in Africa, linking the continent to the rest of the world via undersea cable for the first time.
While the arrival of Seacom was delayed for a few weeks, blamed in part on the current spate of piracy off the east coast of Africa, a three week delay in the launch of a cable stretching from South Africa all the way to Mumbai and London, was still heralded as a remarkable achievement.
With a number of other fibre optic networks also on the way for Africa over the next few years, it is hoped that efforts from the rest of the consortiums currently building undersea networks will prove just as timely.
The launch of these undersea cables promises to usher in a new dawn for Africa, in terms of providing top quality infrastructure and faster broadband speeds, and it is hoped, cheaper internet access.
Africa lights up with new arrivals
While the word Seacom has become synonymous on the continent with the idea of cheaper internet access, there are a number of other cables that are scheduled to launch over the next few years.
With a release date of September 2009, the next cable expected to launch is The East African Marine System (TEAMS), which will connect Kenya to the United Arab Emirates.
The cable is largely Kenyan-owned with the government, Safaricom and Telkom Kenya each holding a 20% share. TEAMS was initiated by the Kenyan government following exasperation over continuous delays in establishing the Seacom network.
The next cable to be lit, on current projections, will be the GLO1 cable at the end of 2009, linking Nigeria to London. At 640 Gb p/sec, GLO1 will have much slower speeds than the 1.28 Tb p/sec offered by both Seacom and TEAMS, but uniquely will provide the first connection to Europe for West Africa.
In time for the 2010 World Cup, the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) is slated to launch in the second quarter of 2010, again linking the East coast of Africa to the rest of the world.
Next is the MainOne system, also expected to go live in 2010, which will connect countries from Portugal to South Africa, but this time on the West coast of Africa. Currently, speculation is mounting that funding issues may see the cable terminate in Lagos. However the MainOne cable will for the first time provide faster connection speeds for West Africa, to rival those offered on the East coast by TEAMS and Seacom.
Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), which was initially planned to stretch from France to Gabon, has since been extended to South Africa, thus connecting the entire West African coast, and is scheduled to go live in 2011.
The broadband market is set for its biggest shake-up in 2011, however, with the arrival of the biggest of all the cable systems in development, the US$600-million West African Cable System (WACS).
When WACS goes live, it will connect Southern and West African countries with Europe at speeds of 3.84 Tb p/sec, the fastest offered by any undersea cable network.
With at least seven cables scheduled to go live in the next two years, Africa’s telecoms landscape is set to change dramatically and South Africa’s location at the foot of the continent places it in a unique position to benefit from these changes.
Is there space for all the cables?
There have been doubts raised about each of the cables at one time or another, and certainly about whether there is adequate demand for such an unprecedented increase in broadband capacity.
That Seacom has already launched gives the operator a competitive advantage against rival undersea cables, however the cost of developing the cables show that on current estimates Seacom is the most expensive of all to develop, despite the fact that it will not be the fastest.
The Shuttleworth Foundation website reveals that on a cost per gigabyte per second per kilometre basis – which the website does caution is not a wholly accurate way of comparing the cables – the Seacom cable is the most expensive of all, while WACS, the last to launch, provides the cheapest capacity.
| Cable |
Cost per gigabyte |
| WACS | 11 USD |
| EASSY | 19 USD |
| TEAMS | 22 USD |
| GLO1 | 24 USD |
| MainOne | 32 USD |
| Seacom | 37 USD |
Of course, Seacom is the only one of these cables to have launched, so not only is its cost base exact, but it also has the competitive advantage of attracting new business ahead of its rivals.
While in the long term customers are unlikely to be perturbed by whether a cable was launched in 2009 or 2011, Seacom does have the opportunity to attract business to take up its capacity long before any of its competitors.
This will be the litmus test that marks out the most successful of the cable networks: the ability to attract customers to take up their capacity.
A true shake-up of Africa’s telecoms space
When 2011 does arrive, heralding the launch of the WACS cable, it will likely result in a true shake-up of Africa’s telecoms industry.
The launch of Seacom had been much trumpeted as a remedy to the high internet costs currently being paid on the continent, yet the expected sharp drop in prices has so far not occurred.
Seacom, like its rival undersea cables, does not provide bandwidth direct to the consumer. The company acts as a wholesaler to ISPs and telecoms networks, who will then decide whether, and how much, to pass on any savings to the customer.
Brian Herlihy, chief executive of Seacom, says that he does expect cost savings to be passed on to the end-user, though he notes that what will really drive down costs is increased competition, which will only happen when the additional cables are launched.
“The more players there are in the communications market the greater benefit the consumer will have as prices will be driven down as a result of the increased availability of bandwidth,” says Herlihy.
“We welcome competition and look forward to seeing Africa become truly connected to the rest of the world,” says Herlihy.
Steve Briggs, executive of commercial sales at South African ISP iBurst agrees. “Many people are seeing it [Seacom] as a panacea for high internet costs, which I don’t think is the case. What will drive down costs is increased competition and economies of scale.”
So, if we don’t get cheaper costs then what is the benefit to the consumer of the various undersea cable networks?
Briggs says that consumers may start benefiting from added-value services such as extra capped bandwidth. “Hopefully we’ll get to the point where capped bandwidth is outdated, but I don’t think that will be in the short-term,” he says.
What does it mean for Africa’s economy?
While the prospect of cheaper telecoms and internet costs are often discussed in terms of the effect on consumers, the arrival of faster and cheaper broadband capacity will also result in major changes for certain business sectors in African economies.
One of the most obvious beneficiaries is likely to be Africa’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, an industry that has been increasingly gaining favour with international companies, as the continent offers low labour costs and excellent European language skills.
High telecoms costs are one of the issues that have plagued the industry in Africa, and cheaper costs will no doubt make Africa’s BPO sector even more attractive to companies looking to outsource certain operations offshore.
Another obvious candidate set to benefit from the provision of cheaper and faster broadband capacity is the ICT industry. However, Seacom’s Brian Herlihy says one mustn’t make the mistake of thinking Africa is the only one set to benefit from this increase in capacity.
“To date Africa has been a receiver of the beneficiation ICT has delivered, but with appropriate infrastructure, Africa will be an innovator and a great contributor to the gains made in this century,” says Herlihy.
