The capacity made available to Africa by the implementation of Seacom seems to be gaining momentum.
Yesterday, Uganda Telecom and Rwandatel said they had bought a “significant amount of international broadband capacity” from Seacom. The landlocked countries will also have access to regional backbones between the east coast of Africa and the local landing, which has been secured by Seacom.
Brian Herlihy, Seacom CEO, says: “From the outset of this project, we realised the importance of connecting inland countries to our international network and this agreement is testimony of our commitment in that regard.”
He says many countries set out to deploy terrestrial networks in anticipation of the arrival of the international bandwidth. “With more and more countries getting connected to the rest of the world via our system, we are eagerly waiting to see the direct socio-economic benefits this will have on the entire region.”
The connectivity will go live at the beginning of September and Herlihy says the development is in line with Seacom's objective to provide connectivity solutions to landlocked countries across the east and southern African region.
SA has been less enthusiastic in the buy-up of capacity from the cable, a problem lamented by local landing company Neotel.
Neotel adds the telecommunications industry is still struggling to come to terms with the overall paradigm shift that has allowed hundreds of small Internet service providers (ISPs) to offer fully-fledged telecommunications services, although few have the ability to actually carry this through.
The termination of the Seacom line, in Johannesburg, is considered to be part of an overall trend to reduce bandwidth prices. Neotel adds it should save ISPs and other telecoms operators the time and cost of building their own lines to Mtunzini. However, this remains an option as Seacom operates on open access principles - meaning anyone with the relevant licence can connect with the facility.
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