The West African Cable System (WACS), set to connect SA to Europe by June 2011, will be extended from Portugal to the UK, to meet the increasing need for capacity driven by broadband services penetration.
WACS STATS
Cable length = Total length (including branches) is approximately 14 500km
Number of repeaters = 236 + spares
Repeater spacing = 65km
Transmission capacity = 10Gbit/s
Current to power repeaters = 0.92 Amp
Time to lay system = 350 days, but a significant amount of the marine operations take place in parallel.
The cable spans 2 000km and will operate at 40Gbps. The new section will increase the overall design capacity from 3.8Tbit/s to 5.12Tbit/s, equal to the download of eight million MP3 files, or more than 8 000 DVDs, in 60 seconds.
Under the terms of this contract extension, WACS will deploy advanced generalised multi-protocol label switching (GMPLS) capabilities, offering intelligent network management.
“The African continent is definitely one of the continents still yearning for affordable connectivity. Meeting the needs for increased capacity along the cable route, this network will enable the landing countries to be served by a new system offering greater capacity and lowering the cost of broadband access in support of innovative applications, such as e-education and e-health, that can positively impact peoples' lives,” offers Kobus Stoeder, chairman of the WACS management committee.
The cable system will connect SA to the UK, with landings in Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, C^ote d'Ivoire, Cape Verde, the Canary Islands, and Portugal.
The $630 billion cable has been funded by a consortium that is composed of 12 parties: Angola Cables, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, Congo Telecom, MTN, Office Congolais des Postes et T'el'ecommunications, Portugal Telecom/Cabo Verde Telecom, Tata Communications/Neotel, Telecom Namibia, Telkom SA, Togo Telecom and Vodacom.
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