Local telecoms providers are testing their traffic on Eassy and say users will see additional capacity within the next few weeks.
The cable was handed over to investors on 16 July, after subcontractor Alcatel-Lucent finished conducting initial tests. Telecoms providers are, however, also conducting their own tests.
“It might seem laborious,” says MTN, “but in fulfilling our fiduciary duties towards all the investors of Eassy, we believed that such tests are prudent, especially in light of the constant failures experienced by recently launched systems on the east coast of the continent. A robust reliable system delivery is a critical objective for us.”
MTN believes it will complete testing by the end of July. It will then progressively migrate traffic onto the Eassy system over the next few months.
Other operators are doing likewise. Vodacom and Neotel are also in the testing phase, with Neotel promising wholesale capacity available in a couple of weeks. A statement from Telkom says: “Initial expectations were that Eassy would be ready for service by August 2010. Telkom is prepared to start commercial services within this timeframe.
“Eassy will bring diversification for East African countries and Telkom will apply Eassy to increase redundancy for the South African market to East Africa and Europe (using cables via the Middle East to extend Eassy to Europe),” says the statement.
Executive head of technology at Neotel Dr Angus Hay says the new cable system will improve reliability and performance, and increase the availability of it's retail Internet offerings and Tier 1 transit services to ISPs.
MTN, as one of the largest investors in the project, assures the effects of the system will be noticed almost immediately by the man in the street, though it cautions: “We have to qualify the immediate impact by considering the numerous parameters one uses to measure effect.”
MTN says factors from latency right through to costing must all be considered, and the process involves multiple key players, such as owners of terrestrial backbone, regulators and last-mile connectivity providers.
Neotel will host the Eassy Management Committee, in Sandton, on 4 August, which will be attended by all the investors from across Southern and East Africa and beyond.
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