A $200m undersea cable promising a massive improvement in the quality and cost of African telecommunications will go live only by the end of next year, or a year later than hoped.
The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) will run from Mtunzini in SA to Port Sudan, with landing points in six countries. It will connect to at least five landlocked countries, so they will no longer have to rely on expensive satellite systems to carry voice and data services.
The cable should lower the cost of international connectivity for many African operators and provide faster bandwidth than most African consumers can currently afford.
But the cable is already behind schedule, and will probably not be active until late 2007, a year later than hoped, project co-ordinator John Sihra said yesterday.
Delegates and operators including local backers Telkom and Sentech are in Johannesburg this week to discuss the 9900km-long fibre optic cable.
"Africa needs this baby to be born," said Sentech CEO Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane. The project could be a catalyst for development, as long as private-sector operators ensured that profits did not become an overriding goal, she said.
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