INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cabling
POWERED BY
New subsea cable to
link South Africa and
the Americas
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finalised requirements
for the cable with parties
that have already shown
an interest. We’ll start
the actual build process
in early 2019 resulting in
the cable being ready to
deliver services around the
middle of 2020.”
This is Seaborn Networks’
first project in Africa,
although the company
hopes it will be the first
of many. “We see South
A subsea
Africa to Brazil (SABR)
telecommunications
cable will link South
as a stepping stone to
Africa to the Americas
solving other connectivity
issues in the region both
in
terms
of
access
to capacity and bringing
he first subsea telecommunications
that capacity to operators in other parts
cable to directly link South Africa and
of Africa at a price that enables them to
the Americas is set to start early next
grow their businesses in line with both
year. Seaborn Networks is undertaking the
their goals and the demands of a user
project, with the cable linking Cape Town
base with an ever growing appetite for
and Brazil, where it will connect with another
access to information, entertainment and
Seaborn cable that extends from Sao Paulo
social media,” added Bax. “We have always
to New York. It would transfer data between
considered that the most economically
SA and the Americas at speeds ‘significantly
sound path for a cable route from South
faster’ than existing cables, which linked
Africa to the US to be the shortest possible
the two regions via Europe and via multiple
route across the Atlantic to a new, ultra-
connection points.
high capacity subsea fibre cable connecting
to the US.
“The project is currently in both the
development and technical planning
“SABR is the shortest path across the
phases,” said Seaborn Networks Chief
Atlantic, landing in Northern Brazil. This is
Operating Officer Andy Bax. “We have
also incredibly more stable than today’s
already completed a feasibility phase in
existing routes which unfortunately seem to
terms of the route itself and the demand for
consistently suffer from faults, embargoes
a cable from South Africa to the US and have
or acts of vandalism. A connection to
determined that the optimal approach is one
Cape Town also provides for easier onward
that utilises our Seabras-1 system, a state-
connections to the eastern side of the
of-the-art submarine fiber cable we recently
continent as well as into Asia, all through
completed from the US to Brazil. We envisage
existing subsea cables or those already
completing the development phase of the
under construction.
project by the end of this year once we have
T
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“Currently, telecommunications traffic bound
for the US from the region traverses up either
the east or west coast of Africa, stopping off
at numerous locations before going through
the Middle East or southern and central
Europe before going from Northern Europe
to the US.
“This is both a long and arduous route from
a telecoms perspective as the number of
stops along the way increase the likelihood
of equipment and human caused faults.
Add to that the geo-political risks of passing
through volatile regions of the world and the
picture is not one that creates comfort for
telecom service providers. SABR will provide
a direct connection to Northern Brazil and
then connect directly to our Seabras-1 for a
non-stop path to New York.
“SABR will provide open access to critical
connectivity for telecom service providers.
In addition, for those service providers
committing to purchase capacity on SABR
ahead of the build phase, they will only pay
their proportional share of the actual build
cost of SABR that share being determined by
how much of the cable capacity they want
to use.
“SABR will be capable of carrying 30-40Tbps
of capacity so there is plenty available for
everyone. Small, medium and large service
providers in the region will finally be able to
purchase the size of capacity they believe
they will need over the coming years on a fair
and equal footing, as opposed to only being
able to purchase expensive capacity when
they are already running out. SABR will enable
providers of all sizes to grow and importantly
provide better quality of service to their
customers, as opposed to the expensive
international capacity available today which
restricts growth and limits the amount of
bandwidth provided to end consumers.” n
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