Five-month-old ICT infrastructure and consultancy company Techteledata says its plans to build an undersea cable from Mtunzini to Cape Town - via East London and Port Elizabeth - are under way with interest shown by potential financial benefactor, IDC.
Musa Phungula, MD and founder of Techteledata, which officially started operating as a private company in December, says the subsea cable is tabled for completion in 2015. "It will be a completely open source cable that will link cable systems landing on SA's east and west coast, respectively.
"It will provide an alternative to Seacom, Eassy [the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System] and SAFE [the SA Far East cable] - which link to Yzerfontein, in Cape Town, where Wacs [West Africa Cable System] and Sat 3 land."
He says the new marine link will benefit the bigger African cable operators. "One of the benefits is that Internet traffic to Europe and the Americas will have an alternative route (other than through Egypt) and provide resiliency."
He says the link is also a strategic one, which will help entities that are looking to build on to cable systems in the future. "There are less maintenance costs involved in using undersea cables, compared to terrestrial routes."
For example, says Phungula, companies like Seacom and Wacs, which are currently using terrestrial links, will benefit from the option of an undersea link.
Phungula, who previously worked in new business development at Seacom, says: "More than anything it will provide route diversity and resiliency. There have been many other companies who have looked into doing this, but which have been prevented due to commercial issues.
He says, in addition to IDC's interest in funding Techteledata's marine cable link, another project sponsor is soon to be on board, pending discussions.
"[The project's] technical operational partner is also known, but cannot be divulged at this stage."
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