16 July 2010, 06:00 p.m.

EASSy cable goes live ahead of schedule 

Following eight months of construction work, the East Africa Submarine System (EASSy), went live on Friday. The My Broadband reported that the EASSy cable system has a 1.4 Tbps capacity, of which 30 Gbps will be lit up at launch. This is similar to the SEACOM cable, which has lit up 100 Gbps even though it has a capacity of 1.28 Tbps. 

Better protected

In the light of the SEACOM frustration that has hit African internet users, EASSy announced that their cable is more resilient thanks to a 'collapsed ring' design, which routes traffic in the opposite direction in the event of a fault. 

Direct traffic

EASSy  is expected to connect South Africa and several African countries and will carry traffic on a direct route to Europe via the Red Sea and the Mediterranean as opposed to other systems that use connections via India or the United Arab Emirates. The system will allow at least twelve land-locked countries to the finally ditch satellite connections. 

Investors

The largest investor is the West Indian Ocean Cable Company, a specially created African investment company, jointly owned by 14 major telecom operators in Africa and funded by global Development Finance Institutions such as the World Bank.

The telecom companies are:

• Botswana Telecommunications Corporation - Botswana

• U-COM Burundi - Burundi

• Onatel Burundi - Burundi

• Djibouti Telecom - Djibouti

• Telkom Kenya Orange - Kenya

• Lesotho Telecommunications Authority - Lesotho

• Libya Post, Telecom & Information Technology Company

• TDM - Mozambique

• Gilat Satcom Nigeria Limited - Nigeria

• Dalkom Somalia - Somalia

• Government of Seychelles - Seychelles

• Zantel - Tanzania

• Uganda Telecom - Uganda

• TelOne Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe

WIOCC owns 29% of the system, while the South African-based company, Telkom, Africa's largest integrated communications company owns 9% of the cable. Sudan's Sudatel, and major African cellphone network providers MTN and Vodacom are also major investors. 

Landing stations

“The cable will go live in all the Eassy countries simultaneously. All the EASSy landing stations have been completed, tested and are fully operational. These are Port Sudan, Djibouti, Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Moroni in Comoros Islands, Toliary in Madagascar, Maputo in Mozambique, and Mtunzini in SA,” Mike Last, director of business development and international marketing at WIOCC told IT Web.

 “The launch of WIOCC's EASSy cable increases the range of international connectivity options available to South African telecommunications operators, increases competition for high-performance international connectivity and brings much-needed diversity to the networks of SA's telecoms operators,” Last further told IT Web.

 

Chris Wood, the CEO of WIOCC, told IT Web earlier this year that they hope to have the first customers sign onto the network by July. 

SEACOM

Meanwhile SEACOM said they only hope to have their cable, which went down on July 5, fixed by late next week.