By WIOCC
The EASSy cable went live on Friday 16th April, the first circuits are already being provisioned on the network and prices are falling.
As a result of the successful WIOCC-EASSy model, with 26 telco operators as members, there is already a large volume of traffic to load onto the network. WIOCC has sold more than 8Gbps of capacity and in total approximately two-thirds of the initial lit capacity of 30Gbps (three 10Gbps wavelengths) has been purchased.
We already have another 80+ Gbps upgrade planned within the next six to twelve months. We also have the option of lighting 40Gbps wavelengths in the future, ensuring that WIOCC will deliver the most cost-effective and reliable bandwidth to the region for many years to come.
We have already seen costs for international connectivity coming down. The impact of EASSy coming in is being felt in the market, with prices both at the end user level and the wholesale level having dropped by 50 to 60 percent over the past year. We anticipate continuing price reductions during 2010, 2011 and 2012. We are also now seeing carriers purchaing capacity on multiple systems, reducing their exposure to single-cable outages and enabling them to offer improved service reliability to their customers.
The arrival of EASSy is creating a truly competitive market for international capacity – from which everyone stands to benefit.