Seacom's $650 million undersea cable project should be seen within a global context and as part of an overall plan to connect Africa, says one of its principal investors, Andile Ngcaba.
Speaking after yesterday's announcement about the finalisation of the project's financing structures, Ngcaba said Seacom would probably become part of the Nepad ICT Broadband Infrastructure Network (NBIN). This project is being championed by the Department of Communications (DOC), but is run under the auspices of the e-Africa commission.
"It [Seacom] is good for the whole of Africa and we are talking about connecting three continents: Africa, Europe and Asia," he said.
Ngcaba was DOC director-general until two years ago and is currently chairman of Dimension Data SA. He also heads up private equity firm Convergence Partners, which has a 12.5% stake in Seacom.
He says that a final agreement has not been signed between the DOC and Seacom, as negotiations are still ongoing.
Cyril Ramaphosa, chairman of Shanduka Group, which has a 12.5% stake in Seacom, has also confirmed the Nepad link, saying: "We are extremely happy that the investors from south and east Africa have partnered with an international counterpart around our shared vision of linking Africa to the world in the spirit of Nepad."
A contentious issue is that the NBIN protocol makes provision for governments to have a "golden share" that will allow them to have a large measure of control over the entire network. Another is the proposal to limit commercial investors to investments of $2 million so that large companies do not dominate the project.
Route running
A Seacom spokesman said his company already complies with a large number of important Nepad principles, including open and non-discriminatory access, which should allow a transparent pricing structure for all those who are able to land capacity.
The Seacom cable will run along the east African coast and its three main termination points will be at Mtunzini, on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast; Mumbai, in India; and Marseilles, in France. The cable will land at Mozambique, Madagascar, Kenya and Tanzania.
The cable will have a capacity of 1.2Tb, which is about double that of rival Eassy's (East African Submarine Cable System's) planned 640Mb and an estimated 10 times that of Telkom's west coast SAT-3 cable.
Seacom has completed the survey of its route and contractor Tyco is scheduled to begin construction next month. The project is on track to meet its commissioning date of June 2009.
Other agreements
Neotel will spend R20 million building the landing station and the portion of the cable that will stretch into SA's territorial waters.
"We are not a licensed telecommunications operator and we don't plan to be one. So our agreements with Neotel include the use of their licence to land the cable," said Brendan Doyle, a member of Convergence Partners.
Doyle said other agreements between Seacom and Neotel include those for co-marketing, as well as the transmission network between Mtunzini and the main centres where bandwidth will be consumed.
Referring to possible competition from Eassy and government's Broadband Infraco company, Ngcaba said Seacom should be seen as a complementary cable rather than one that poses competition.
"Both those projects can benefit from Seacom. It is about connecting Africa," he said.