Subsea Connectivity As Good As It's Going To Get

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By Bonnie Tubbs, ITWeb

SA – and Africa at large – have come a long way in terms of international connectivity, which is partly the reason there are no ground-breaking subsea arrivals like Seacom expected in 2015. Yet, development in terms of upgrades on ocean floors that facilitates better connectivity will be far from dormant.

Mark McCallum, director and head of global services Africa at Orange Business Services (OBS), notes, in just over a decade, SA has moved from pure dependency on SAT3/SAFE (2002) to the addition of Seacom (2009), Eassy (2010) and WACS (2012).

“This took our capacity into SA (SAT3/SAFE) from approximately 800Gbps, up to almost 12Tbps – a 15-fold capacity growth. ACE could add another 5Tbps when it eventually lands in SA.”