South Africa is not facing challenges when it comes to international connectivity landing on its shores, says Seacom chief executive Byron Clatterbuck.<\/p>\n
Over the last six years, South Africa has been connected to numerous undersea broadband cables that have brought much-needed bandwidth to the country.<\/p>\n
Prior to 2009, South Africa\u2019s only primary undersea connection was SAT-3\/SAFE. But since then, the country has been connected to Seacom, SAT-3, SAFE (South Africa Far East cable), EASSy (The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System) and WACS (West Africa Cable System).<\/p>\n
Seacom, in particular, was the first to launch a subsea broadband cable along Africa\u2019s eastern coastline in 2009.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly, the challenge is not on the international side and that\u2019s what we\u2019ve seen,\u201d Clatterbuck told Fin24.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve unleashed the international side. We have terabits of capability sitting there in our POP (point of presence) in Teraco (a data centre provider in SA).<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to be able to take that over to the customer,\u201d he said, referring to the need to have sufficient last-mile, or terrestrial fibre networks, across South Africa..<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, mobile network MTN [JSE:MTN] said it intended to connect South Africa to the ACE (Africa Coast to Europe) cable, which currently connects to West African countries such as Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Clatterbuck said the possible arrival of ACE along South Africa\u2019s shores would provide more wholesale options but that it was unlikely to have an impact on the local enterprise market.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, every carrier wants to build the most resilience that they can at the lowest cost that they can,\u201d Clatterbuck told Fin24.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdding another cable from a wholesale perspective means that you have more choice, which is a good thing. Probably it will have a price impact on the wholesale marketplace. At the enterprise level, it won\u2019t really impact,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Beyond the ACE cable, though, Clatterbuck said another cable connecting into South Africa may only be needed for a specific purpose.<\/p>\n
For example, the 4 600km Hibernia transatlantic cable, which connects New York to London, is the first of its kind to be built in over a decade.<\/p>\n
The cable is intended to shave off milliseconds in connectivity and will be sold as a service to bankers and traders in the world\u2019s two premier financial hubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that could happen in Africa,\u201d Clatterbuck told Fin24.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you add another cable there, how much value will you add? If you have four, is that enough? Five, six? And they\u2019re largely routed the same way – is that really value-add?\u201d<\/p>\n
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