The SEA Cable System is making massive new bandwidth available, enabling prices to come down dramatically.After having suffered for many years from high telecoms prices and the often frustrating consequences of gross underinvestment in links to international broadband networks, South Africans can start looking forward to a new era of a dramatically upgraded communications network.

Undersea cable projects will see the establishment of new communication links between South Africa, East Africa, India, the Middle East, Europe, the United Kingdom and South America via Brazil.

This new era of better global communications networks entered the phase of reality with the announcement early in December last year that construction of the privately financed 13 700 km Seacom undersea cable system, by US-based Tyco Telecommunications has started.

In August government also announced plans of it own for two undersea cables at a total cost of $1,3 billion (nearly R10 billion), both of which will be commissioned by 2009. The one cable, and the one expected to be started with first, will link South Africa with Bazil. The other cable will establish a new link to the United Kingdom.Seacom had initially indicated that once financing for the project was secured, which was finalised in November, production of the high-tech cable and undersea repeaters for the submarine cable would start. This has now happened.

"The launch of construction of the sea cable system marks a significant moment for our industry as we begin the first major submarine cable infrastructure system to link East and South Africa with India, the Middle East and Europe," Tyco vice president for sales, marketing and project management Michael Rieger said at the time of the announcement

."We are confident that our contributions to the design and implementation of this system will bring significant advancements to the service and technology capabilities available to citizens and businesses throughout the region," he said.The Seacom cable would cover more than 13 700 km and will pass from Mtunzini, in South Africa, along the East Coast of Africa, linking Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Kenya, before landing in Mumbai, in India, and Marseille, in France.

This project was expected to cost in excess of $550-million. It will have a design capacity of 1,28 terrabytes a second, and the project completion is expected by 2009, in order to support the expected exponential increase in demand for bandwidth in 2010 and beyond.

Private equity venture Seacom has signed up investors for its $650-million undersea fibre-optic cable, including South Africa's investment holding company Venfin, Cyril Ramaphosa's Shanduka group and a black-owned group, Convergence Partners, which all took up stakes.

Tyco Telecommunications, a Tyco Electronics division, is a turnkey supplier of undersea telecommunications systems and operates a fleet of modern vessels and remotely operated vehicles, serving the undersea cable and offshore markets around the world.

.Meanwhile, Telkom, which operated a link up the West Coast, currently the country's only, had its own expansion ambitions, which potentially competed with those being proposed by government.

Telkom reportedly told Engineering News recently  that it had noted the State's international broadband intentions and even indicated that it was open to a partnership. It stressed, though, that two separate investments would create capacity redundancies.

In a statement released at the start of the construction of its cable, Seacom said its offerings will complement communication carriers of South and East Africa through the sale of wholesale international capacity to global networks eastward through India and westward through Europe.

The system will provide African retail carriers with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth, removing the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting East and South African economic growth. The SEA Cable System will have many times the capacity of the sole existing cable in the region, enabling greater availability and lower cost for high demand services such as high definition TV, peer to peer networks, IPTV, and Internet.

Brian Herlihy, President, Seacom was quoted as saying that the overwhelming demand for increased bandwidth in East and South Africa grows greater each day. The SEA Cable System is making massive new bandwidth available, enabling prices to come down dramatically and opening up the possibility of developing new fields of economic activity in all the countries served.

"The SEA Cable System will be ready to serve Southern and East African markets from 2009, well in time to meet the bandwidth needs of the Confederations Cup and the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa, and the growing requirements of the economies in the countries it serves."

 "We are confident that our contributions to the design and implementation of this system will bring significant advancements to the service and technology capabilities available to citizens and businesses throughout the region," Rieger said.       

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