NEW CABLE SYSTEM FROM SOUTH AFRICA TO INDIA

SEACOM CABLE SYSTEM

Tyco Telecommunications has announced that it has started construction on the US$650-million Seacom undersea fibre-optic cable, which will link southern and eastern Africa with India and Europe by 2009, bringing down connectivity costs on the continent.
"Seacom's offerings will complement communication carriers of south and east africa through the sale of wholesale international capacity to global networks eastward through India and westward through Europe," Tyco said in a statement on Wednesday.
"The system will provide African retail carriers with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth, removing the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting east and south African economic growth."
According to Tyco, the increased capacity of the cable as compared to existing infrastructure will enable the greater availability and lower cost of high-demand services such as high definition television (HDTV), peer to peer networks and internet protocol television (IPTV).

According to Business Day, New York-based Herakles Telecom is a development group that has invested some $4-billion in Africa, and owns 25% of the cable.

Seacom will have a capacity of 1.28 terabits per second, which is approximately 10 times the current capacity of the SAT-3 cable which runs along Africa's west coast and connects South Africa to Europe.

South Africa's second national operator, Neotel is not part of the cable-building consortium, but owns the landing rights as part of its licence and will contribute R20-million toward the project, with funds going toward the cable landing station and all related facilities within South African territory.

According to Neotel, the cable should be ready for service during 2009, placing South Africa in a much stronger position to support the 2010 Fifa World Cup, whose demand for international bandwidth, and in particular high definition television broadcasting, will be unprecedented.