The following table summarises the current status of East, Central and Southern African regional, multilateral telecom infrastructure transmission projects in progress or completed (microwave and fibre optic). The projects are ordered by date. This does not include an inventory of all bilateral international links, although many of those which do exist are relics of the Panaftel network which may or may not have been upgraded. Neither does it include satellite connectivity or the location of earth stations, which account for the vast majority of international bandwidth supply.
Project
Date enter service
Status Bandwidth Countries Notes
PANAFTEL 1975 -
1990s
(? ) Variable 45 African countries. First int’l connectivity for most countries, predates satellite. Network remains in place, but has deteriorated. By 1990: - 39,000 km of radio relay links, - 8,000 km of submarine cable, - 39 int’l switching centers, - 29 links or apx. 4,000 km of links remained to be installed Sat-1 Retired in 1993
X - South Africa, Cape Verde
Tenerife Portugal
Submarine cable. Out of service
Sat-2 1993 ? 565 Mbps South Africa, Spain,
Portugal Submarine cable. SEAMEWE Out of service X - - Submarine cable. Out of service SEAMEWE -II
1994 ? 565 Mbps Djibouti Egypt, Algeria
Tunisia
Submarine cable.
SEAMEWE -III
1999 ? 40 Gbps Djibouti, Egypt, Morocco,
Sudan via Jeddah/SAS1
Submarine cable.
SEAMEWE -IV
? 1.28Tbps Egypt, Sudan via Jeddah/SAS1
Submarine Cable FLAG
Europe – Asia (FEA)
1997 ? 80Gbps Egypt, Sudan via
Jeddah/SAS1
Submarine cable.
FLAG Falcon
2005e ? 1.28Tbps Egypt Submarine cable,
Ready for Service (RFS) date early 2005
Project Oxygen
2000 X 640 Gbps Submarine cable encircling
Africa, 101 landing points worldwide. Project abandoned. SADC Regional Information Infrastructur e (SRII) - Short term Underw ay ? ? ? ? ? ? ? (? ) ? 34 Mbps 622 Mbps 155 Mbps 155 Mbps 155 Mbps 622 Mbps 2.5 Gbps 34 Mbps 2.5 Gbps
South Africa – Lesotho (i) South Africa – Zimbabwe Namibia – Botswana Botswana – Zambia Namibia – Zambia Botswana – Zimbabwe Zambia – Zimbabwe Malawi – Zimbabwe Malawi - Tanzania Completed Completed Work in progress Work in progress Work in progress Work in progress Work in progress Upgrading to 155 Mbps Under discussion SRII - Medium term Underw ay ? ? ? ? NA ? ? ? ? ? ? 155 Mbps 155 Mbps 155 Mbps 155 Mbps 155 Mbps 622 Mbps 622 Mbps 622 Mbps 622 Mbps 622 Mbps 622 Mbps 2.5 Gbps
South Africa – Lesotho (ii) South Africa – Lesotho (iii) South Africa – Swaziland South Africa – Swaziland (ii)
South Africa – Mozambique
South Africa – Botswana South Africa – Namibia Botswana – Zambia Namibia – Zambia Mozambique – Zimbabwe Malawi – Zimbabwe Malawi – Zambia Completed Completed Completed Completed NA Completed Postponed Upgrade from 155 Mbps Upgrade from 155 Mbps Upgrade from 34 Mbps Upgrade from 155 Mbps NA SRII - Long term ? ? ? ? N A N A N A N A Namibia – Zambia Namibia – Angola Angola – DRC Angola - Zambia Under discussion Under discussion Under discussion Under discussion Med Nautilus
2002 ? 40 Gbps Egypt Submarine cable.
Sat- 3/WASC 2002 ? NA 45 Mbps N A Angola Benin South Africa Submarine cable. Max 120 Gbps SAFE 2002 ? Max 130 Gbps
Mauritius, Reunion, South Africa, India, Malaysia.
Submarine cable. COMTEL 2006/7 ? Max 120 Gbps COMESA countries: Angola, Burundi, Comoros, DRC, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Project would use terrestrial backbone infrastructure of the operators in the region.
COM -7 ? N A Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa
Use route of railway from Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) to Livingstone (Zambia), and then interconnect to Malawi, Telecom Namibia and Botswana’s fibre network and in turn connect to Sat- 3/WASC landing point Cape Town for international capacity. Route from Dar es Salaam - Livingstone, would then connect to Katima Mulilo.
AfricaONE Phase 1 X Max 80
Gbps
South Africa, Namibia, Angola, DRC, Congo, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Morocco
Project abandoned.
AfricaONE Phase 2 X Max 80
Gbps
Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia.
Project abandoned.
AfricaONE Phase 3 X Max 80
Gbps
Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania Madagascar, Mozambique South Africa.
Project abandoned. Route of phase 3 similar to that of proposed East African submarine cable.
SAS-1 2003 ? Max 1.28
Tbps
Sudan, Saudi Arabia Submarine cable. Proposed
East African Submarine Cable
2005? ? N/A South Africa, Madagascar
(Mahajanga), Tanzania (Dar es Salaam), Kenya (Mombasa) then either:
- Djibouti; or - Seychelles,
Maldives, India.
MOTRACO 2003 ? 622Mbps South Africa, Swaziland,
Mozambique
Operational network over the national power grid.
East Africa digital transmission project
- ? - Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania Project delayed
- Telkom Kenya investing US$11.5m in the roll out of Kenyan section of network as a national backbone. Was due for completion end 2003.
- MTN Uganda building fibre from Kampala to Kenyan border, had reached Jinja by Sept 2003. - Kenya Pipeline Company could add fibre to its network from Mombasa to Ugandan border
Intercontinental Submarine Cable Links
Although few cross-continental and international submarine fibre cable links currently service east and southern Africa, three countries in the region do have access via the SAT-3, SAT-3/WASC/SAFE and SEA-ME-WEA systems. These are Angola, South Africa and Djibouti. South Africa already has international links to some of its bordering countries which use the SAT-3/WASC/SAFE system, and Djibouti is in the process of building backhaul links to Somalia and Eritrea for use of the SEA-ME- WEA and ultimately the EASSY cable.
Sat-3/ WASC
The Sat-3/WASC/SAFE project became operational at the end of May 2002. It is split into two segments: Sat-3/ WASC, which runs from South Africa to Portugal and is a successor to Sat-2; and SAFE which runs from South Africa to Malaysia. In both cases, the fibre has already been laid and was commissioned in early 2003.
Sat-3/WASC has an ultimate capacity of 120 Gbps, and was supplied by Alca tel submarine networks. Initially, it will have a capacity of 20 Gbps, but because this is already fully subscribed, it is in the process of being upgraded to 40 Gbps – a capacity which will become available not later than June 2003. (need to update
dates/information since we’re already in 2004)
The cable is owned by a consortium comprising 35 operators, including a number of African carriers where there are landing points (so NITEL in the case of Nigeria?). Each of these carriers owns capacity on the cable, based on a pro rata scale depending on their respective level of investment. In addition, there is a pool of unused capacity which these operators do not require in the immediate future. Capacity in this pool can then be used by one of the owners, or by other operators. Non-owners can therefore obtain capacity in one of two ways:
• First, they can do so from the national carrier in that country which is an owner of the cable. A prerequisite for direct access is that such operators are licensed to carr y international traffic, so typically mobile operators will be able to but not ISPs which would just lease more capacity from the carrier (which in turn has greater
• Second, operators can buy directly from the pool and therefore bypass that carrier, through an Indefeasible Right of Use (IRU) from the cable’s network administrator – which is Telkom. However, the national carrier has first right of refusal. More so, in order to allow carriers to recover their investment into the cable, they enjoy exclusivity for the first five years. This could mean that operators would be forced to buy capacity from the incumbent carrier, which could therefore charge whatever price it likes. But in order to protect the buyer, carriers cannot charge more than the pool price (do you have any figures on pool or other prices for SAT 3 access?
Alcatel was awarded a US$33m contract in April 2002 to upgrade the Sat3/WASC/ SAFE system by 10 Gbps. This will add one wavelength between Portugal and South Africa. The system has four wavelengths at 2.5 Gbps connecting the West African countries and five wavelengths at 10 Gbps directly connecting Portugal and South Africa.
SAFE
SAFE has an ultimate capacity of 130 Gbps, of which an initial 10 Gbps was made available. The supplier for this segment was Tycom submarine cable systems (USA). Again, this capacity is being upgraded to 30 Gbps. In both cases all of the fibre is ‘lit’, and so this upgrade is to the repeater stations along the route, with the additional capacity achieved through wavelength management.
Owners of the SAT-3/SAFE cable
ners of Sat-3/WASC/SAF 13. Angola Telecom
14. AT&T Corp (USA) 15. Belgacom SA
16. Communications Global Network Services Ltd (BT)
17. Cable & Wireless Global Network Ltd
18. Camtel
19. China Telecom
20. Chunghwa Telecom Ltd Co 21. Côte d’Ivoire Telecom 22. Cyprus Telecommunications
Authority
23. Deutsche Telekom AG 24. France Telecom
25. Ghana Telecommunications Co Ltd 26. Global One Communications
Holdings Ltd 27. Maroc Telecom 28. Korea Telecom
29. KPN Royal Dutch Telecom 30. Marconi (Portugal)
31. Maurutius Telecom Ltd
32. MCI Worldcom International Inc 33. Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd 34. OPT Benin 35. OPT Gabon 36. Reach 37. Singapore Telecommunications Ltd
38. Societe Nationale des
Telecommunications du Sonatel (SONATEL)
39. Sprint Communications Co LP 40. Swisscom Ltd
41. Telecom Italia SpA 42. Telecom Namibia Ltd 43. Telefonica de Espana SAU 44. Teleglobe (USA) Inc 45. Telekom Malaysia Berhad 46. Telkom South Africa
47. The Communications Authority of Thailand
48. Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (India) (VSNL)
SAS-1
Sudatel and Saudi Telecommunications Corporation (STC) have completed a submarine cable connecting the two countries, from Port Sudan to Jeddah (Saudi Arabia). Global Marine Systems and BT are the initiators of this system, and a joint venture company Arab Cables Company has been created between the Saudi
authorities and the Arab Investment Company to implement the project. Sudatel holds a 40% stake in Arab Cables Company.
Proposed East African Submarine Cable