Seacom, Interoute team up

By Siyabonga Africa, ITWeb junior journalist

Johannesburg, 29 Apr 2009

Seacom and Interoute are going ahead with their deal to create a digital super-highway between East Africa and Europe.

The agreement will see the East African undersea cable being connected to Interoute's pan-European fibre-optic network. The value of the deal has not been disclosed.

An Interoute statement says it will also give East Africa access to the European network operator's range of wholesale and enterprise services. Opportunities will be opened up for telcos, and the deal will also support the growing demand for broadband Internet in the region, it adds.

"This project provides the vital last link for Seacom in connecting East Africa to Europe and onto the rest of the world," says Interoute CEO Gareth Williams.

Far-reaching

Interoute marketing director Jonathan Brown the company's fibre optic network has a number of benefits for Seacom, including its reach into more than 22 countries on the European continent.

“Also, because we're not an incumbent network provider, we can provide more competitive pricing to Seacom,” adds Brown.

Seacom's undersea cable, which has a capacity of 1.28Tbps, will run along the east coast of Africa and connect SA, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya with Europe and the rest of the world. The cable will also extend to Marseilles, France, where it will connect to Interoute's fibre-optic network which has a capacity of one petabyte.

Williams notes the connection between Seacom and the European fibre-optic network will go a long way towards supporting the growing demand for content. Demand is expected to rise once Seacom lands in June.

New opportunities

Analysts agree the deal will open new markets for operators in Europe looking for growth. TeleGeography Research analyst Alan Mauldin says the agreement will enable the introduction of a wide array of services, from carriers and enterprises, between Africa and Europe.

“Both ends of the undersea cable will be plugged into a meaningful global data supply chain. East and Southern Africa will be directly connected into the economic heartland of Europe at international data speeds never seen before in this part of the world,” says World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck.

Local Internet service providers, which lease capacity from Seacom, will benefit from having access to this surplus of bandwidth and will be able to strike independent deals with providers in Europe, explains Goldstuck. The most obvious services which will come to the fore would be voice and video communications, over the Internet, between Europe and East and Southern Africa.

“It should help to bring down costs for operators of voice services, and that should in turn mean that consumers and businesses could pay less for international calls to Europe,” adds Goldstuck.