Cable envy

Size does count. Especially in the undersea cable industry that has demonstrated throughout the year that bigger means better, that huge is a relative term and there is no "Oh my God" size either.

For the bandwidth-starved people of southern and eastern Africa, the wave of announcements of the various cable projects that will alleviate their desire to be connected cheaply, has turned into a big boys` and girls` pissing contest.

It all started more than seven years ago with the first proposals to connect the East African coast via an undersea cable. The initial capacity was mooted at around 320Mb, which then seemed to be a big deal. However, the East African Submarine Cable System, also known as Eassy, got sucked into the political maelstrom of African politics and is now running so late that one wonders if it is choking on something.

Eassy doubled its size when Seacom suddenly announced this year that it was in the process of planning to lay its own cable with a capacity of 1.2Tb along the east coast.

Then the Department of Public Enterprises announced its Broadband Infraco would lay, not one, but two 3Tb cables, one to Brazil and the other to Europe.

No wonder Telkom keeps the actual capacity of its undersea cables a closely guarded commercial secret. It feels rather under-endowed and somewhat embarrassed as its teeny SAT-3 cable reportedly has only about one-tenth of Seacom`s capacity.

Telkom`s cable is like being the only girl at a British army base in Afghanistan. She is popular due to her rarity rather than her service or pricing, but once the beauty contest opens up, we will see what the warts really look like.

Telkom`s cable is like being the only girl at a British army base in Afghanistan.

Paul Vecchiatto, Cape Town correspondent, ITWeb

Pricing has already become an important issue. Broadband Infraco was the first to say it would reduce rates by undercutting Telkom by about 20% on its current pricing. Impressive. But Seacom trounced this by saying it would offer a whopping 80% cut. Now Infraco has said it will reduce rates by 85%.

To be fair, Telkom has been reducing its prices, by up to 60% in some cases, over the past three years and it plans to do so further. The principle it knows so well is that if you have a small cable, you have to go as low as you can to attract business.

Broadband Infraco doesn`t have to worry about that though. It already has a big stick in the form of the Public Finance Management Act, which compels government departments to use the lowest bidder and it plans to go low in price, if not in tactics.

Going big again, Seacom says its project will cost about $650 million (R4.31 billion) and Broadband Infraco is looking for an additional R1 billion on top of the R637 million already promised. Eassy only has a mere $250 million, while Telkom just won`t tell us what it spent.

With all this looming big capacity and big spending, it is no wonder that communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and her director-general Lyndall Shope-Mafole are rushing off a "Guide to safe cable landings".

Big money and big capacity; it all sounds just too good and someone will have to pay eventually. Unfortunately, my dear consumer, it will not be you who will light a post-serviced cigarette.