From: senaey fethi (senaeyfethi@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Aug 10 2009 - 05:19:28 EDT
August 10, 2009
With Cable, Laying a Basis for Growth in Africa
By CAT CONTIGUGLIA
PARIS — The opening of a fiber optic cable providing broadband Internet service to millions of people in Southern and Eastern Africa is part of an ambitious plan to expand Web access and help spur the continent’s economy and technology industry.
The cable, built by Seacom, a consortium 75 percent controlled by African investors, is the first of about 10 new undersea connections expected to serve Africa before the middle of next year. The expansion will cost about $2.4 billion and will help connect Africa with Europe, Asia and parts of the Middle East at higher speeds and a lower cost.
Until now, Africa had only one submarine fiber optic cable: the less efficient SAT-3 in Western Africa, owned primarily by Telkom, the South African telecommunications company, and last updated in 2002. Those with no access to that cable were forced to use expensive and slow satellite links.
Alan Mauldin, research director at TeleGeography, a telecommunications market research company, said Africa was the last major area where broadband access was not widespread.
“This international web of undersea cable,” Mr. Mauldin said, “roots high-end countries like Kenya and Uganda into the Western world better than just satellite capacity.”
A World Bank report released in June said that access to better information and communication technology corresponded with economic growth. The report said that for every 10 percentage points of increase in high-speed Internet access, economic growth rose 1.3 percentage points.
The technology sector should benefit greatly, analysts said. Services like call centers will be able to offer more competitive rates because of lower operating costs, and technology companies will be able to communicate better with clients and partners overseas.
Lindsay McDonald, a telecommunications analyst at Frost & Sullivan in South Africa, said that Africans were stymied by the lack of broadband service and that better Internet connections were an important platform for new businesses.
The Seacom cable will provide Internet service that is about 10 times faster than any existing service in Africa, said David Lerche, a communications analyst at Avior Research in South Africa.
The 10,500-mile cable, which became operational on July 23, cost $650 million and links Eastern and Southern Africa with Europe and Asia. Within the next year, four more submarine fiber systems are expected to be added in East Africa. One, the Teams cable, is expected to be completed in September and will connect Mombasa to the United Arab Emirates, and another, the East African Submarine Cable System, should be in use by the middle of next year.
Mike Bean, a software developer for IDXonline, a small industrial information technology company in South Africa, said his company paid $2,000 to $5,000 a month for Internet access. He said the Seacom cable would allow his company to teleconference with partners overseas at a much lower price.
“Unless you’re a very wealthy business, you can’t really participate in things like that,” Mr. Bean said.
Demand is high for better communication technology in Africa, analysts say. A report released in May by Delta Partners, an advisory and investment firm for media and technology in the Middle East and Africa, said there was potential for the number of broadband users in Africa to expand to 24 million by 2011, from 2.5 million at present.
In West Africa next year, the Glo-1 Cable will link Nigeria and Ghana to Europe, and the Main One cable will link Nigeria and Ghana to Portugal.
However, it could still be several years before access to less expensive broadband connections becomes widely available to individual consumers, said Étienne Lafougère, the general manager for submarine network activity for Alcatel-Lucent, which is building the majority of the submarine cables in Africa, including those for the East Africa Submarine Cable System and Teams.
He said access depended on local Internet service providers updating technology and adding cables to the main system to reach more isolated areas.
“We are building the highways,” Mr. Lafougère said. “Then you have to build roads and secondary roads, and that usually takes more time.”