Name and Location
Seacom fibre-optic cable.

Project Description
Seacom provides African retail carriers with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth, removing the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting East and South African economic growth.

The 17 000 km undersea cable system provides broadband to countries in East Africa, with South Africa, Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya already interconnected by a protected ring structure. A second express fibre pair runs from South Africa to Kenya. These two fibre pairs have a combined capacity of 1,28 Tb/s.

Additional express fibre pairs are also provided from Kenya to a point of presence (PoP) in Marseilles, in France, and from Tanzania to a PoP in Mumbai, India. Seacom has procured fibre capacity from Marseilles to London as part the network.

In addition, the cable has landing points in Egypt and Djibouti.

The cable enables greater availability and lower cost for high-demand services, such as the Internet, peer-to-peer networks, high-definition television and Internet Protocol television.

Value
The cost is $650-million. The project is fully funded, with African investors taking a majority stake of 76,56% in the project.

Duration
The Seacom undersea fibre-optics cable started operation on July 23, 2009. The cable was initially scheduled to begin operating on June 27, 2009.

Client
Seacom is 76,56% African-owned, with Industrial Promotion Services, an arm of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, holding 26,56%; Venfin (25%); Convergence Partners (12,5%) and the Shanduka Group (12,5%). The remaining 23,44% is held by Herakles Telecom.

Seacom is responsible for the development of the private submarine fibre-optics cable, and will be the full service provider of international fibre bandwidth along the East Coast of Africa to Southern Africa, Europe and Asia.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
Nedbank Capital and Investec Bank (debt funding), Neotel (cable development agreement in South Africa) and Tyco Telecommunications (supply contract for Seacom).

Latest Developments
March 2011
Seacom has expanded its cable network access by adding a further five countries, and has increased the capacity of the submarine cable. Seacom’s low-cost services can now be accessed in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

The cable operator plans to add several more countries in Africa to its network by the end of 2011.

Seacom has further reported that the objective of the network expansion is to provide accessibility to broadband starved countries, coupled with increasing resilience through its recent acquisition of east and west coast submarine cable capacity.

July 2009
Seacom has reported that the submarine fibre-optic cable system linking south and east Africa to global networks through India and Europe has been completed and commissioned. Backhauls linking Johannesburg, Nairobi and Kampala with the coastal landing stations have been established and Seacom is also working with its national partners to commission the final links to Kigali and Addis Ababa shortly.

June 2009
The increase in pirate activity during April and May 2009, both in terms of intensity and geographical coverage, has necessitated a change in Seacom's cable installation plans, which has resulted in a delay in the ready-for-service date from June 27, 2009, to July 23, 2009. The planned route has required the ship to transit an area of increased pirate activity where other ships have been attacked or seized.

The cable deployment in the troublesome waters has since been completed and splicing to connect the section of cable from Mumbai to Africa is expected shortly. Testing of the larger cable system will be finalised shortly thereafter. The cable section from South Africa (Mtunzini) to Kenya (Mombasa), including all south and east African landing stations, has already undergone successful testing.

In the meantime, Seacom is working with its contractor, Tyco Telecommunications, to find ways of accelerating the outstanding works and bring forward the ready-for-service date ahead of July 23, 2009.

May 2009
In a little over a month, southern and eastern Africa will finally get truly connected to international broadband networks.

Seacom has announced that the critical portions of the subsea cable and land-based infrastructures have been completed on schedule. These include the branching units and shore-ends necessary to direct the traffic to the landing stations across eastern and southern Africa. All cable landing stations, including the terminal equipments, have also been completed and are operational.

Testing is now under way and will cover the network's connections, interfaces and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy systems to ensure that optimum configuration and traffic flow is attained before customers go live. The entire system will be operated and controlled through Seacom's Network Operations Centre, which is based in Pune, India.

The finalisation of the agreement with Interoute and Tata will enable customers to connect to the global fibre network through a myriad of routes across all major European hubs and onwards to North America and the Middle East and Asia. In addition, substantial headway has been made to ensure that landlocked countries also benefit from the arrival of cheap and plentiful bandwidth. Seacom will continue to work closely with these countries to ensure that inland networks are built. Current backhaul solutions cover Johannesburg, Kampala, Kigali and Nairobi.

February 2009
Seacom has reported that the first sections of deepwater cable are now resting on the sea bed of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. The cable has been laid from the edge of the South African waters to Mozambique and cable laying is also proceeding in the Red Sea from Egypt towards the coast of Yemen. A third ship is currently being loaded with the remainder of Seacom's deep-water cable which will be deployed from India towards Africa, where these three cable segments will be joined.

In parallel to the marine installation, Seacom has made significant progress in land-based construction. The high-performance optical transmission equipment, which connects customers to inland terrestrial networks, has been installed in the Maputo, Mumbai and Djibouti cable landing stations. Construction of the cable station in Kenya will be completed in early February followed shortly by the Tanzanian and South African stations. Equipment installation in these locations, and in Egypt, will be completed in April.

Seacom has also been preparing to provide services to customers by June and recruited over ten experienced local telecommunications professionals from India, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania to operate and maintain the cable stations. Many of these personnel have already been trained at the Seacom Network Operations Centre in India and are now participating in the testing of the system as it is being installed. A complementary set of personnel is being recruited and will start training in March. These teams will also work with the landing partners' operators in Egypt and Djibouti.

November 2008
The construction of Seacom's 17 000 km fibre-optic undersea cable remains firmly on schedule to become the first cable to link East Africa to the rest of the world.

Over the last three months, a number of major milestones were reached including the groundbreaking at the cable station landing sites in Mozambique and Kenya. Construction has started in Maputo and installation of prefabricated cable station buildings has started. In Mombasa, foundations are beginning for similar prefabricated stations, which are in country, ready for installation on site in December.

These containerised cable station modules were shipped from New Jersey in the US, to Africa in September. The remaining cable stations for South Africa and Tanzania are on their way to Africa. All Seacom's high-performance submarine transmission equipment has been shipped from the factories and is also on its way to the cable stations. In addition, the first teams of technical staff for the East African landing stations have been selected and will begin training this month.

Nearly 90% of the Seacom cable has been manufactured. The first load of assembled cable and repeaters is on its way to the region in Tyco Telecommunications' ship, the CS Tyco Reliance. Installation is scheduled to start soon. The loading of the second shipload of cable will begin this month and head towards Africa early in 2009. The third and final shipload of cable and repeaters will follow shortly thereafter. The entire Seacom network will connect all cable sections together off the Horn of Africa in the second quarter of 2009. Testing of the system will then be completed before the commercial launch in June 2009.

August 2008
Some 10 000 km of cable has been manufactured to date at locations in the US and Japan and Tyco Communications, the project contractors, will begin shipping terrestrial equipment this month with the cable expected to be loaded on the first ship in September 2008. The laying of shore-end cables for each of the landing stations also will proceed from September. This process will comprise the cable portions at shallow depths ranging from 15 m to 50 m where large vessels are not able to operate.

From October 2008, the first of three Reliance Class vessels will start laying the actual cable. The final splicing, which involves connecting all cable sections together, will happen in April 2009, allowing enough time for the testing of the system before the commercial launch in June 2009.

The final steps of the environmental-social-impact assessment process are well-advanced and all small archaeological, marine and ecological studies, which required scuba diving analysis, have been completed, as well as social consultations with the affected parties.

The cable, including repeaters necessary to amplify the signal, will be stored in large tanks on board the ships. The branching units necessary to divert the cable to the planned landing stations will be connected into the cable path on the ship, just prior to deployment into the sea. The cable will then be buried under the ocean bed with the help of a plough, along the best possible route demarcated by the marine survey.

The connectivity from Egypt to Marseille, France, will be provided through Telecom Egypt's TE-North fibre pairs that Seacom has purchased on the system. TE-North is a new cable currently being laid across the Mediterranean Sea.

July 2008
Seacom has reported that the construction of the undersea cable is on schedule and at a mature stage of development. The project has about ten months left to commissioning. The full construction of the Seacom cable was initiated on the back of the marine survey and pre-engineering work that Tyco completed in October 2007. Subsequently, Seacom and Tyco Telecommunications brought the construction contract for the full delivery of the system into force on November 13, 2007.

On Budget and on Time?
The cable was completed and commissioned on July 23, 2009.

Contact Details for Project Information
Seacom communications and media relations, Frederic Cornet, tel + 27 11 447 3030, fax + 27 11 447 6910 or email media@seacom.mu.