The small fishing village of Yzerfontein, 80km north of Cape Town, is abuzz with expectation this morning, as Africa's largest capacity submarine fibre-optic cable is officially launched.
The advent of the West Africa Cable System (Wacs) could mark the beginning of a significant economic ascent in SA and the continent at large, as the 14 000km subsea cable, linking Southern and Western Africa to Europe, brings an additional 5.12Tbps of capacity to SA's shores.
In what analysts say will translate into a drop in international broadband prices and long-term economic upliftment, Wacs is the first submarine cable to land along Africa's west coast since Telkom launched SAT3 over a decade ago.
The cable, supplied by the submarine networks arm of international telecoms firm Alcatel-Lucent, connects SA to the UK, with landings in Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, C^ote d'Ivoire, Cape Verde, the Canary Islands, and Portugal. It is the first cable to land in Namibia, Togo, Congo Brazzaville and the DRC.
The confidence and hope held in the super-cable is evident in the amount of investment that has been poured into it. Investing parties include Angola Cables, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, Congo Telecom, MTN, Office Congolais des Postes et T'el'ecommunications, Portugal Telecom/Cabo Verde Telecom, Neotel, Telecom Namibia, Internet Solutions (IS), Telkom SA, Togo Telecom and Vodacom.
Copious capacity
According to one of Wacs' largest investors, MTN, the cable will effectively raise SA's current broadband capacity by more than 500Gbps. The company says this will be a “much-needed boost” for MTN in SA, where consumer appetite for data quadrupled during 2011, and data consumption - excluding SMS - increased by approximately 200% year-on-year. MTN says, in the same period, the usage of smartphones increased by 128%, to 3.6 million users, while data users soared to 10.9 million.
Neotel CTO and co-chairman of the Wacs management committee, Angus Hay, says the cable's design of a four-fibre pair, 128-wavelength technology makes it the largest cable system to ever land in sub-Saharan Africa.
“It will be capable of carrying the equivalent traffic of Seacom, Eassy and SAT-3/WASC/SAFE cable systems combined. Wacs will meet the demand for capacity well into the first quarter of the 21st century.”
Executive for connectivity at IS Sean Nourse says the sheer capacity of Wacs - coupled with the fact that it boasts an open access policy - will boost international broadband competition, in turn reducing pricing and providing Africa with the means to grow “exponentially” in terms of data consumption.
MD of World Wide Worx Arthur Goldstuck says the advantages of the additional capacity Wacs brings with it lie not so much in the capacity itself, but in the fact that it will promote competition and options in the market - a reiteration of what Seacom brought to the table when it launched in 2009.
“The more providers you have - and the more options - the more there is a balance of power in the market, and pricing moves to benefit the customer, rather than the supplier.”
Moving on up
Nourse says big changes are afoot with the arrival of Wacs. “To date, Africa has been a consumer of content produced by the US and Europe, often as a result of restrictive or non-existent access to broadband Internet. With the so-called 'broadband abundance' now at our disposal - and in conjunction with ICASA's laudable ruling on the IPC cost - we can expect to see enormous social and economic changes in the country.”
He says the lack of adequate bandwidth has long been a hurdle to Africa taking its place on the world economic stage. “Wacs adds to Africa's capability to become a true global player.”
CTO of MTN Kanagaratnam Lambotharan says Africa has, until now, been a pedestrian on the information superhighway. “However, [our] investment in WACS will now ensure that millions of our customers can speed along the global information superhighway, by accessing huge capacities with the ability to optimally utilise data and telemetry offerings which modern telephony applications provide.”
MTN says the commercialisation of Wacs will set the stage for a “mobile revolution” that will enhance the quality of life for millions of people across the continent.
CEO of MTN Ghana Michael Ikpoki says the introduction of Wacs will address both technological shortfalls experienced by most of Africa's disadvantaged communities, and stimulate economic growth in those countries. “Broadband has immense potential to change the socioeconomic landscape of African countries.”
According to a World Bank report on broadband in developing countries, every 10% increase in broadband connection boosts economic growth by 1.38%. The Wacs cable is expected to increase connectivity by over 20%.
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