TechCentral, leading online technology website, has named Seacom President, Brian Herlihy as “the obvious choice” for Newsmaker of the Year for 2009. Seacom went live in July 2009 and has already resulted in dramatic price reductions and new investments in terrestrial infrastructure in East Africa.

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Conclusion: The African communications growth story can no longer be viewed as a frontier opportunity as more and more players from developed markets enter the African market.

Rather, the market is showing signs of greater maturity reflected by, amongst other: (i) increased competition; (ii) reducing gross margins; (iii) declining ARPUs; (iv) greater complexity of product offering and mobile payment services; (v) active attempts by incumbent mobile and fixed-line operators to expand into other parts of the value chain; and (vi) the emergence of infrastructure sharing models. While subscriber growth remains superior to other regions, with significant pent-up demand remaining, these changes in the communications landscape is forcing operators to rethink their strategies and focus on the next wave of growth.

Significantly, there have been a number of major developments that will catapult the African communications market into another league from both a cost and bandwidth perspective. These include the arrival of new international submarine fibre optic cables such as Seacom connecting the East African seaboard to international submarine fibre networks and the accelerated liberalisation of African communications markets.

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Seacom, the first undersea cable providing fibre connectivity to the East Africa, is enabling affordable access to the internet to millions of people. Recently, a key contributor to the development of fibre optics technology, Charles K Kao, was one of the winners of the 2009 Physics Nobel Prize. 

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SEACOM today announced that its 1,28 Terabytes per second (Tb/s), 17,000 kilometres, submarine fibre optic cable system linking south and east Africa to global networks via India and Europe has been completed and commissioned. Backhauls linking Johannesburg, Nairobi and Kampala with the coastal landing stations have been established and SEACOM is also working with its national partners to commission the final links to Kigali and Addis Ababa shortly.

The launch of SEACOM opens up unprecedented opportunities, at a fraction of the current cost, as government, business leaders and citizens can now use the network as the platform to compete globally, drive economic growth and enhance the quality of life across the continent.

Website: http://www.seacom.mu/
Blog: www.seacomblog.com
SMR: http://www.seacom.socialmediarelease.co.za/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Seacom/100372437436
YouTube: www.youtube.com/seacomlive
Twitter: SeacomLive

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SEACOM Closes Financing, Starts Full Construction of Undersea Fiber Optic Cable

Transcontinental Investment Boosts South and East African Economic and Social Development with High Capacity Link to India and Europe

African investors have taken a significant majority stake in SEACOM’s undersea broadband cable, joining hands with an international partner to link southern and east Africa with India and Europe in a massive technological boost to economic and social development on the continent.

The equity and debt facilities for the entire project costs have been unconditionally committed for the construction of the state-of-the-art cable from Mtunzini in South Africa to Mumbai in India and Marseille in France via Mozambique, Madagascar, Kenya, and Tanzania.
“This is a major milestone”, stated SEACOM President, Brian Herlihy “The construction of a new submarine fiber optic network will pave the way for a data revolution that intends to follow the explosive growth of the mobile industry in Africa. A shift from a primary voice market to a primary data market will be a catalyst to increasing worker productivity, creating better access to e-eduction and the growth of service industries such as call-centres, BPOs and research centres in Africa.
SEACOM has already invested more than $10 million in the marine survey and engineering of the cable. The advance start has enabled SEACOM to maintain its ready for service date of June 2009. Actual production of the high-tech cable and undersea repeaters start next week.”

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