Industry experts have scoffed at the idea that the Uhurunet project, led by the e-Africa Commission, will be operational by the fourth quarter of 2010, as the Department of Communications (DOC) stated earlier this week.
However, none of the industry experts would go on record stating this and the DOC has refused requests to discuss the issue. All sides cited “sensitive issues and political manoeuvring” as the reason.
On Wednesday, the DOC released an update of progress on the Uhurunet and Umojanet projects. The former aims to lay a cable, or system of cables, that will eventually encircle the African continent. The latter is the terrestrial link that will see a fibre-optic system laid up the African spine to connect landlocked countries. These projects are an outgrowth of the Nepad Broadband ICT Network Protocol - an agreement that SA endorsed over a year ago.
The DOC statement said: “The full cable is on track to be ready for service in Q4 2010.”
It also said that, in November, an agreement was reached between the Nepad e-Africa Commission (on behalf of Bahricom Development Company, Uhurnet's operating entity) and Nigeria's Main One on joint collaboration and construction on the West Coast cable. A similar agreement was brokered with Kenya regarding the cable construction on the East Coast.
SA financing
The DOC says the Industrial Development Corporation, Pan African Infrastructure Development Fund (part of the Public Investment Corporation) and Development Bank of Southern Africa have agreed to fund both West and East Coast cable construction.
The finalisation of common equity will be concluded soon and construction of both cables will commence in the first quarter of 2009. It is expected that the West Coast cable will be ready for service in the first quarter of 2010, and the East Coast cable ready by the third quarter of 2010, the statement says.
Should the Uhurunet cables be laid, each coast of Africa would have at least three undersea cables under construction next year.
On the East Coast, the privately-funded Seacom cable is scheduled to begin operation in June 2009 and the East African Submarine Cable System is about to begin construction and is scheduled for completion in late 2010.
Apart from the upgrading of Telkom's SAT-3 cable, on the West Coast, there is also a consortium consisting of Telkom, Neotel, MTN, Vodacom and Broadband Infraco (a Department of Public Enterprises company) that is finalising its structure and finance arrangements.
The one and only
“The only cable that will be fully operational by 2010 is Seacom,” one industry source says. Another source says there are only two manufacturers that are capable of constructing these cables, namely Tyco and Alcatel Lucent, and neither have slots available until after 2011.
A third source says constructing a cable is not just a matter of putting it in the water, but also consideration has to be given to licensing rules and regulations within the various countries it will land in and how it will connect to terrestrial networks in those countries.
The Main One cable, led by Nigeria's Main Street Technologies, is busy developing the first stage of its cable that will run from the northern West Coast of Africa to Portugal. This phase of the cable is scheduled to be completed by August 2009 and the second phase of stretching it to SA is scheduled to be completed a year later.
“It isn't just manufacturing slots that are tight, but money as well. The global economic meltdown has affected these projects quite a bit with private equity (that funded Seacom) having dried up and this means the operators have to pay more to get the cables laid,” a source says.
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