Allied Technologies (Altech) has purchased 5Gbps of capacity on the Seacom network that CEO Craig Venter says will bolster the company's East African reach.
The alliance between the companies will see Seacom buy into Altech's already extensive backhaul in the region, allowing it to access several landlocked countries.
Altech's Kenya Data Networks (KDN) has been establishing infrastructure across East Africa, the latest of which is a 1 500km fibre backbone from the Kenyan city of Mombasa to Kampala, in Uganda.
The company says it plans to add 400km of underground cable from Kampala to Kigali, Rwanda, which will bring the project to a total of 6 000km of cable.
Venter says Altech will use the partnership as a strategic growth plan for the company's future. While he says Altech is showing strong growth, the company needs to look towards a new driver, and East Africa is it.
Altech already has an investment in Seacom competitor, Teams, gaining 10Gbps from the deal on the cable that will link Kenya to the rest of the world. However, Venter says the decision to increase Altech's bandwidth capacity through Seacom provides it with much needed redundancy.
“We needed to be involved in investing in both sides of the equation. Our alliance with Seacom on the undersea cable side will give us the international bandwidth we need to service the region, as well as our own internal requirements in those countries.”
Venter says the increased capacity will only reach SA through the internal requirements of its recently acquired service provider, Technology Concepts. “Of the capacity that we are getting, roughly 10% will come to SA, while the rest will remain in East Africa.”
Seacom CEO Brian Herlihy says the company decided to strike the deal with Altech, because it needed a partner to reach the landlocked countries. “My major nightmare has been to wake up and have a wonderful project in Mombasa, but not getting the capacity into the landlocked countries.”
He says Altech was chosen as a partner for the East African region, because it was the only company with fibre already in the ground. “We did heavy due diligence to see who could do this; KDN was the best choice. We started working on this deal a while ago.”
Herlihy says the East African market has seen a dramatic 200% increase in data usage since the Seacom cable was lit up. He says the region is fast outpacing the South African market for ICT advancement, thanks to a liberalised environment.
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