Seacom’s 15 000 km fibre optic undersea cable, linking Southern and East Africa, Europe and South Asia, is scheduled to go live in June 2009.
Tyco Communications the project constructor will be shipping terrestrial equipment this month. The laying of shore end cables will proceed in September. The process will comprise the cable portions at shallow depths where large vessels cannot operate.
The first three Reliance Class vessels will start laying the cable from October 2008. The connecting of the cables will happen in April 2009, which will give testing time before the launch in June 2009.
Cables, including repeaters to amplify the signal, will be stored in large tanks onboard the ships. The branching units will be connected into the cable path on the ship just prior to deployment into the sea. Then the cable will be buried under the ocean bed.
Connectivity from Egypt to Marseille, France will be provided through Telecom Egypt’s TE-North (a cable currently being laid across the Mediterranean Sea).
President of Seacom, Brain Herlihy said they are very happy with the progress made over the last five months. Manufacturing and deployment schedule is on target. Brain adds that Seacom are able to meet the African market’s urgent requirements for cheap and available bandwidth.
The cables will start working before the 2010 Fifa World Cup starts in South Africa and Seacom has already been working closely with broadcasters to meet broadband requirements.
Seacom is said to assist communication carriers in South and East Africa through the sale of international capacity to global networks. The Undersea Fibre connection will provide African carriers with open access to cheap bandwidth, removing infrastructure bottleneck and support east and southern African economic growth. The first cable will provide broadband to countries in east Africa which at the moment rely on expensive satellite connections.
By IT News Africa staff reporter
