Does anyone know of a simple one-stop shop to find out more about the progress of submarine cable development around Africa – particularly East Africa? The following main initiatives are underway:
- EASSy (The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System) – MoU signed in December 2003
- SAFE (South Africa Far East) – Commissioned in 2002 and built by Tyco Submarine Systems of the USA
- SAT-2 – in service since 1993 linking South Africa with Tenerife
- SAT-3/WASC (South Atlantic/West Africa Submarine Cable) – linking Portugal and Spain to South Africa
- SEACOM (South East Asian Telecommunication Cable) – commercial launch due June 2009 (Update from The Daily Nation, Kenya)
- TEAMS (The East African Marine System) – in 2006 the Kenyan government partnered with Etisalat to build its own fibre optic cable; in October 2007 Alcatel-Lucent was awarded the contract to lay the cable linking Mombasa with Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates
- West Africa Cable System – formed from Infraco AWCC, SAT-4 and Uhurunet
- MainOne Submarine Cable project from Portugal to Ghana and Nigeria (thanks for the link Jon) – first phase expected to be completed by June 2010 led by the Nigerian Main One Cable Company
Useful links include:
- Fibre for Africa
- Many Possibilities – map of the undersea cable environment around Africa from Steve Song’s blog (thanks for the link Abi)
- Wikipedia’s list of submarine telecommunications cables
Please do add comments below relating to other sources of useful information about this topic.
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