Nigeria, Others Prepare for Broadband Banquet

By the end of 2011, the entire continent of Africa will be connected to no fewer than nine undersea broadband cable initiatives that would serve as Africa’s innovation catalysts, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.
And just as punch-cards served as the innovation catapult for Silicon Valley’s generation, the over 17 terabytes of designed broadband capacity from the projects are expected to “cheetah pole-vault” the continent’s technological revolution.
Experts said that harnessing broadband potential is pivotal to the continent’s development and that submarine fibre optic cables have become the modern vessels for trade and communications between international markets and the African continent.
Presently, on average, accessing the Internet cost Africans 50-100 times more than what it cost consumers in Europe, Asia and North America due partly to a number of factors including the infamous SAT-3 undersea cable which operates in fits and starts.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that the situation is not helped because most of the African Internet traffic has to transit through Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) in the U.S. or Europe, requiring African Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to pay long distance charges.
But all that are set to change as several undersea cables with over $3.15 billion investment are set to complement SAT-3 and bring the people of the continent fast, efficient and affordable communications they need for sustained development and progress.
The undersea cable initiatives include: the East Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) which is owned and operated by a group of African (92%) and International (8%) telecom operators. It is 1.4 Tbps cable that provide connectivity throughout South and East Africa, as well as interconnection to multiple international submarine cable networks for seamless onward connectivity to Europe, USA, Middle East and Asia.
There is also the East African Marine System (Teams), an initiative spearheaded by the government of Kenya to link the country to the rest of the world through a submarine fibre optic cable.  It was first proposed as an alternative to EASSy.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that the West Africa Cable System (WACS) is another system to link South Africa with the United Kingdom along the West coast of Africa.
The cable has landing points in South Africa, Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Cape Verde as well as the Canary Islands, Portugal and the United Kingdom. The design capacity of WACS is at least 3.84 Tbps.
Elsewhere, Seacom is privately funded and provides South and East Africa with wholesale international capacity to global networks via India and Europe.
Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), a newly formed consortium of 20 telecom operators is building another fiber-optic underwater cable network that will stretch 17,000 kilometers (10,500 miles) from Penmarch, France, to Cape Town, South Africa, connecting 23 countries.
The network will have built-in 40 gigabit per second (Gbit/s) capability which will cater blazing-fast broadband Internet speeds.
Also, Atlantis-2 is a fiber optic transatlantic cable connecting Argentina, Brazil, Senegal, Cape Verde, Canary Islands and Portugal. The cable is 13,100 kilometres in length.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that closer home; there is the $800 million Glo 1 system by Globacom Limited along the West Coast of Africa between Nigeria and the UK. When completed, the cable will be 9,500 km long, and with a minimum capacity of 640 Gbit/s.
The Main One Cable is also a Nigerian grown undersea cable system expected to stretch from Portugal to South Africa with landings along the route in various West African countries.  Promoted by Main Street Technologies the cable system is expected to span 14,000 km and provide additional capacity for international and Internet connectivity to countries between Portugal and South Africa on the west coast of Africa.
All the cable systems are expected to provide access to regional telecom operators and Internet service providers at more affordable rate.