By Speed Communications Press Release

London  – SEACOM has signed a contract with Interoute to connect its 17,000 kilometre intercontinental submarine fibre optic network  to Interoute's pan-European fibre optic network, providing East Africa with access to major business centres in Europe and throughout the rest of the world, plus Interoute's range of innovative wholesale and enterprise services.  The agreement will allow Interoute and SEACOM to open up new opportunities for telecommunication companies and enterprises in the region, as well as supporting the growing demand for broadband.  East Africa has seen a phenomenal increase in demand for Internet connectivity, with users rising by 1,062% from 2000 to 2008*. 

 

The development of telecoms in East Africa has been restricted owing to its dependence on low capacity expensive satellite based connectivity. which suffered from quality issues and increased round trip delay not suitable for large streams of rich multimedia content  The new subsea cable will radically change the economics of high capacity bandwidth for the East African telecoms industry, enabling businesses to get more capacity for less cost, and at a higher quality. 

 

SEACOM's new fibre optic cable will run along the east coast of Africa, creating a digital super highway that links South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya with Europe and South Asia.  The cable will extend to Marseilles, where it will connect to Interoute's network providing a speed of light route to Europe, North America and the Middle East.  The new subsea cable is scheduled for service in June 2009, and will offer 1.28 Tera-Bits Per Second of capacity, the equivalent of streaming approximately 1,600,000 simultaneous YouTube videos and will enable high definition TV, peer to peer networks, and IPTV, as well as supporting surging Internet demand.

 

Gareth Williams, CEO Interoute, commented, “Interoute is proud to support SEACOM and the growing African market with high speed, high capacity connectivity.  This project provides the vital last link for SEACOM in connecting East Africa to Europe and onto the rest of the world. When this cable goes live we are expecting to see a huge increase in the amount of content flowing between these two continents and I believe this cable will provide a crucial link in supporting economic growth in the region for many years to come.

 

Brian Herlihy, CEO SEACOM, said, “SEACOM's agreement with Interoute enables the realization of connecting Africa to the global fibre optic networks.  While SEACOM is the first cable to connect East Africa to today's global network, it alone cannot provide the interconnection required to deliver our customers world class services.  Our agreement with Interoute and its partners extends SEACOM's capability to interconnect customers in Africa to not only anywhere in Europe but to anywhere in the world.”

 

Alan Mauldin, TeleGeography Research analyst, had this to say about the deal, “SEACOM have taken an excellent strategy by partnering with Interoute to link East Africa to the major European hubs.The seamless link between these networks will enable the introduction of a wide array of services between Africa and Europe and is good news for carriers and enterprises alike.”

 

* Source: Internet World Stats, 21 December 2008, http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm#africa