SA plans own undersea cable

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

Cape Town, 20 Jun 2007

South Africa aims to set up its own undersea cable to meet future broadband demands.

Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri says the departments of communications and public enterprises are collaborating to plan a west coast undersea cable that will be based on the principles of open and non-discriminatory access.

During her briefing before the National Council of Provinces' (NCOP) committee on labour and public enterprises yesterday, the minister said this new cable would be ready for the 2010 World Soccer Cup. It would compete with and supplement the current SAT-3 cable managed by Telkom, she noted.

Matsepe-Casaburri was briefing the committee on the Nepad Broadband Infrastructure Network/Eassy protocol, which the NCOP has the ability to delay but not reject outright because its members are not elected as with the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications. The latter has approved the protocol for ratification later this week.

"The country will face huge demands for bandwidth in the coming years, such as for the Square Kilometre Array [the radio telescope SA is bidding for to be located in the Karoo] and another cable, apart from Eassy, will be needed," she said.

Members of her staff said the memorandum is still being worked on and that no date has been set for it to go before Parliament.

Public enterprises minister Alec Erwin, whose department is setting up Infraco to become a broadband infrastructure company, has already said part of its plans will be to lay such a cable.

Matsepe-Casaburri said her department's role is that of making policy and regulations, while the Department of Public Enterprises is playing a service provider role.