The East African Submarine Cable System (Eassy) should slash the cost of wholesale broadband to one-seventh of the current SAT-3 costs.
This is according to Eric Osiakwan, executive secretary of the African Internet Service Providers Association; and Henry Chasia, deputy chairman of the Nepad e-commission on Eassy, speaking at yesterday`s Highway Africa conference, in Grahamstown.
"From the SAT-3 cable it costs about $11 000 for an e1 capacity, but the Eassy should offer the same capacity for about $1 500," said Osiakwan.
Chasia, who endorses this prediction, told delegates: "We expect a significant reduction in the cost of communications within [participating African] countries and to the rest of the world."
Cooperation
Crucial to the progress and success of the Eassy project, he said, is having all participating nations signing the protocol agreement.
"The protocol is about creating a framework where the countries will collaborate with each other on the submarine cable and also the terrestrial network (which links landlocked nations to the cable)."
At the moment, only seven of the 23 nations involved in the project have signed the protocol agreement.
However, Osiakwan also alluded to the political infighting and lack of agreement preventing the Eassy project from getting off the ground. "What I fear at the moment is that some of the constituencies are taking an entrenched approach."
He urged nations to stay at the negotiation table and work out compromises, outlining the Eassy vision of "licensed operators having unfettered access to the submarine cable at a non-discriminatory price".
Ownership structures
Osiakwan also revealed African countries spend a combined total of about $400 million each year in routing local traffic overseas.
"An e-mail, for instance, sent from a South African account to another has to be routed via an exchange in the UK or the US. "This is money going out of Africa," he said.
The Eassy cable, allowing for cheaper inter-country communication, should alleviate this problem.
Chasia pointed out the Eassy cable`s pan-African and public-private ownership model differs greatly from the SAT-3 running along the West African coastline.
"With SAT-3, those who own the cable are the same ones that use it - this created the situation we are in now, and we don`t want it to happen again," he noted.
"Right now, what`s happening is intolerable - it [the price] has to go down," he added. Osiakwan reminded delegates that Telkom`s monopoly on SAT-3 cable rights ends in April.
Demand for bandwidth in Africa grew by 19% in 2001, 28% in 2002, and 37% in 2003, he added.
On the sidelines of the conference, Devan Naidoo, policy director at the Department of Communications, said it is difficult to accurately predict the Eassy cable`s wholesale broadband prices.
"Open access is the key," he said. "It is definitely one of the key principles of the Eassy project."
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