{"id":33633,"date":"2013-03-15T00:15:23","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T22:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=33633"},"modified":"2013-03-15T08:38:33","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T06:38:33","slug":"seacom-talks-up-south-atlantic-cable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/33633\/seacom-talks-up-south-atlantic-cable\/","title":{"rendered":"Seacom talks up South Atlantic cable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Submarine cable operator Seacom<\/a> is confident of the prospect of a South Atlantic cable crossing, despite the economic and geographical challenges.<\/p>\n

In an interview with BusinessTech, Seacom CEO, Mark\u00a0Simpson<\/a> noted that a number of parties were\u00a0in discussion about building a cable systems across the South Atlantic.<\/p>\n

This included local company, eFive<\/a>, through its $280-million South Atlantic Express (SAEx<\/a>) cable system, which has set a start date in 2014. \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The group\u00a0is still in discussions over financing, with Rosalind Thomas<\/a>, chief executive officer of eFive stating that she expected financial closure in June 2013.<\/p>\n

WASACE Cable Company Worldwide Holding also has plans to link four continents including the development of new routes from Africa to Latin America and the US. This project is being managed by US-based David Ross Group.<\/p>\n

Landing points would include South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Brazil, the US and Spain.\u00a0WASACE said that the Africa cable systems was scheduled to be in service by the first quarter of 2014.<\/p>\n

Also in the pipeline, is a\u00a034,000-km long BRICS cable linking its five members: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.<\/p>\n

Promoter of the cable,\u00a0i3 Africa says the cable would cost an estimated\u00a0\u00a0$1.5 billion.<\/p>\n

A 6,000-kilometre cable from South America to Africa is also being discussed by\u00a0Brazil\u2019s state-run teleco Telebras in conjunction with Angola Cables.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo obviously we are in discussions with them about how we connect them, and what we might do in that regard,” Simpson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnywhere you go in the world, as soon as you\u2019ve got four or five guys talking about it, one will probably get built. So I am assuming that at least one will get built,” he said.<\/p>\n

Seacom in Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n

Simpson said that for 2013, Seacom would continue to\u00a0focus on Africa, on the Southern and Eastern markets.<\/p>\n

He pointed to major landing countries including Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, and Djibouti, while the group also expected to focus on countries including Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe already do some work there, but we are going to look more aggressively at how we do that, extending points of presence (PoP), and products, rather than just selling services,\u201d Simpson said.<\/p>\n

Seacom would also push up through Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda, Etheopia, and South Sudan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a number of those markets, we already do some work, but we\u2019d like to go deeper. Uganda, is probably the most obvious one we would\u2026PoP,\u201d Simpson said of the landlocked country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus still remains as a carrier provider, a service provider. We are still in the wholesale business, we are not looking at retail. What we continue to look at is how we push the network inland,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

More on Seacom and subsea cables<\/h3>\n

WASACE Africa cable set for operation in 2014<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Race on to build new SA subsea cable<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

SAEx sets sights on 2014 build<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

SAEx cable deal signed<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Let my people go (online): Convergence Partners<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

WACS launched in South Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

SA-Brazil cable plans on track: eFive CEO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Sorting out South Africa\u2019s Internet access<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Submarine cable operator Seacom is confident of the prospect of a South Atlantic cable crossing, despite the economic and geographical challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[2564,2091,3678,26,2383,721,329,5381,2714],"class_list":["post-33633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-angola-cables","tag-brics","tag-efive","tag-headline","tag-i3-africa","tag-rosalind-thomas","tag-saex","tag-telebras","tag-wasace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33633"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33640,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33633\/revisions\/33640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}