SEACOM is a privately funded venture which built, owns, and operates a submarine fibre-optic cable connecting communication carriers in south and east Africa. SEACOM sells wholesale international capacity to global networks via India and Europe.
The project’s business model is to provide affordable bandwidth via volume discounts and large bandwidth growth. It is the first to provide broadband to countries in east Africa, which previously relied entirely on expensive, slower, satellite connections. South Africa, Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Kenya are inter-connected via a protected ring structure on the continent. A second express fibre pair connects South Africa to Kenya.
These two fibre pairs have a combined design capacity of 1.28 Tbit/s, of which 100 Gbit/s is currently active. The cable was commissioned for operation on 23 July 2009.
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Express fibre pairs are also provided from Kenya to France into a PoP in Marseille, with 640 Gbs capacity, and from Tanzania to India into the PoP in Mumbai with 640Gbs capacity. Seacom has procured fibre capacity from Marseille to London as part of the Seacom network.
Seacom’s subsea cable has multiple layers of armoring. The amount of armor depends on the depth of water, and conditions of the ocean floor in the area where the cable is situated, and other local hazards of the region. The Seacom cable is deployed with a mixture of Double Armor Cable, Single Armor Cable, Special Protection Cable (with a metallic wrap below the insulator, rather than steel wires), and, in deep waters, Lightweight cable (no armor). Shallower water typically has more armor than offshore, deeper cable. In the deepest water (thousands of meters depth), generally speaking, there is no armor wire. Rather, strength members internal to the cable sheath support the cable.
The cable is a loose tube design. Multiple fiber types are used in the cable: Dispersion shifted and Non-Dispersion Shifted. The system design determines the amount and relative location along the transmission path of each type of fiber.
The repeaters are optical amplifier repeaters, using erbium-doped amplifiers. The repeaters are spaced along the cable many tens of kilometers apart. The distance between repeaters varies depending on the segment in the system. Repeater spacing is determined by a variety of factors, including the transmission capacity of the fibers in the cable and the distance between terminals terminating fibers in the cable. There are over 150 repeaters in the system.
The Seacom undersea fibre-optic cable system is designed to perform reliably for 25 years. It seeks to provide African retail carriers with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth, thus removing the international infrastructure bottleneck. This will help to support east and southern African economic growth.
On 23 July 2009, the 15,000 km (9,300 mi) subsea fibre-optic cable began operations, providing the East African countries of Djibouti, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique, with high speed internet connections to Europe and Asia. The cable was officially switched on in simultaneous events held across the region, including in Mombasa and Dar es Salaam. The launch was described by the Chief Executive of SEA Cable Systems as being "a historic day for Africa… [that]… marks the dawn of a new era for communications between the continent and the rest of the world". Upon being switched on, the owners of the cable stated that it would reduce internet costs by up to 95% to wholesale customers, whilst providing a far greater speed of internet connection. It may take a long time for the benefits to reach ordinary citizens, particularly those who live in remote rural areas.
Investment in the Seacom project is US$600 million in total, with 76.25% of financing coming from African funders and the balance from Herakles Capital, a US entity. The project’s ownership structure is as follows: Industrial Promotion Services with 26.25%, VenFin Limited 25%, whilst Convergence Partners and Shanduka hold 12.5 % each. Herakles Telecom LLC holds a 23.75% stake in the project. Neotel will be responsible for landing the cable in South Africa.
The Seacom fibre-optic cable’s enormous capacity will enable high definition TV, peer-to-peer networks, and IPTV, whilst meeting the surging Internet demands in Africa.
The cable landing points are:
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Marseille, France
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Sidi Kerir, Egypt
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Ras Sidr, Egypt
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Djibouti
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Mombasa, Kenya
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Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
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Toliary, Madagascar
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Maputo, Mozambique
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Mtunzini, South Africa
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Mumbai, India
Connectivity has been purchased by Seacom to allow onwards connection from Marseille to London, United Kingdom. In addition, as of June 2009, backhaul solutions allow onwards connectivity from the coastal landing points to:
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Johannesburg, South Africa
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Kampala, Uganda
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Kigali, Rwanda
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Nairobi, Kenya
Outages
April 15 2010 SEA-ME-WE-4 shunt fault
SEACOM currently relies on SEA-ME-WE 4 for connectivity between Egypt and France.Thus it has been affected by the SEA-ME-WE-4 outage.
