South and East African broadband consumers will see dramatic cost cuts when the Seacom cable system, being developed in partnership with India's Tata Communications, comes on line in July this year.
Tata Communications will be an anchor tenant customer on the privately-owned Seacom cable, with the Tata-led South African consortium Neotel playing a major role in rolling out broadband access in the country in anticipation of increased uptake due to the lower cost.
In recent months, Neotel has been ripping up roads all over Johannesburg to install cables. It has also entered into agreements with other service providers to use the same network to reduce costs as it extended the project to other major cities.
"As a truly global service provider, we are able to provide end-to-end solutions in India, Europe and South Africa, as well as onward connectivity to major business destinations to the United States and Asia," Simon Cooper, vice president of international network development, Global Transmission Services at Tata Communications, told the magazine IT Week here.
Tata Communications will operate the Seacom landing point in Mumbai while Neotel will take care of the South African end.
"We will see a new age in telecommunications in South Africa as it becomes extremely competitively priced like never before, not only for local businesses and consumers, but also we will witness the dawning of South Africa becoming really competitive in global terms for the first time, activating the much needed second digital economy," Panday said.
The West African Cable System Consortium (WACS), expected to be in operation by the end of 2010, is still in its final stages of agreement between the parties concerned, and will connect the West African coast to Europe; while the East African Submarine Cable System (Eassy) is due to go into operation by the first quarter of next year.
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