MTN and four other telecommunications are set to build a new 12,000 kilometre submarine cable system, called Africa-1 which is expected be the fastest and most reliable connectivity between Africa, the Middle East and South Central Asia.
Other operators in the consortium include Telkom, Saudi Telecom Company, Telecom Egypt and PCCW Global, based in Hong Kong while other carriers are expected to join at later stages. The cable will construction is expected to begin later this year and be ready for service by late 2017.
The consortium which recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to being work on the cable system the cable will extend more than 12 000km along Africa’s east coast towards Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, with up to an additional 5 000km for branches.
Africa-1 will have at least a three-fibre core and use 100G technology, according to a PCCW Global statement. It will be equipped to accommodate several terabits of capacity from the first day. It will also offer interconnection with other cable systems and open access at all cable landing points.
Mr John Unterhorst, a group executive from MTN Group said the consortium members have access to landings at all major cable systems in the Middle East, which will facilitate connectivity between Africa-1 and the rest of the world. Africa-1 will complement existing cables now nearing their mid-life he said.
“It will ensure future resiliency and capacity requirements for the explosive digital broadband future so vital for Africa’s economic and social development,” said Unterhorst. The investors said Africa-1 will complement existing high-bandwidth cable systems in the region.
Early this year, undersea cable operator Seacom experienced multiple outages which left most of Africa without Internet connectivity for hours at a time. To exacerbate the problem, the West Africa Cable System, which Seacom uses as backup, went down at the same time.
Telecom Egypt CEO Tamer Gadallah said “The addressable market of African wholesale bandwidth customers is more promising than in many other regions.”
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Reporting by Godwin Okafor, The Naija247news in Lagos, Nigeria.
