Private undersea cable company Seacom has formed an alliance with Telecom Egypt to buy a system-within-a-system that will allow it to land in Marseilles, France. The deal is mooted to be worth $90 million (R602.1 million).
According to a Seacom spokesperson, the alliance will allow Seacom to land its east African undersea cable on the Egyptian Red Sea coast, connect with Telecom Egypt's overland route, and then into the Mediterranean Sea and to eventually land in France.
"This is termed a 'system-within-a-system', because while Telecom Egypt owns the connection, Seacom will operate it as though it owns it."
According to the spokesman, this will be the fastest way for Seacom to link into its European destination.
Seacom will land its 15 000km cable system that will connect SA, Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya to India and the Telecom Egypt cable station at Ras Sidr, in Egypt. From Ras Sidr, Seascom will own a system within Telecom Egypt North's cable system, permitting the full Seacom system to reach France seamlessly.
Akil Beshir, chairman and CEO of Telecom Egypt, says: "Fuelled by Asia traffic growth, the need for more Asia-Europe submarine cable systems in the next two to four years is expected to exceed the number of systems built in the past and those new systems will be able to carry much larger capacities."
Brian Herlihy, Seacom president, says: "This solution permits Seacom to offer its customers capacity from a PoP [point of presence] in a major African city to the PoP in Marseilles, all on one system."
Seacom recently finalised its investor relationships and has completed a survey of its route. Constructor Tyco is due to begin constructing the cable within the next month and Seacom says the cable should be operational by the first quarter of 2009.
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