Infraco under deadline pressure

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

Cape Town, 09 May 2008

Public enterprises minister Alec Erwin is confident Broadband Infraco's African West Coast Cable (AWCC) will meet the 2010 deadline, but admits it is under pressure to do so.

"Priority will have to be given to meet timelines and we are entering into various contract negotiations to ensure it is ready for the 2010 Soccer World Cup," he said, in reply to questions during a parliamentary media briefing yesterday.

Earlier this week, the Presidency said Broadband Infraco's AWCC was now government's preferred international undersea cable initiative, aiming to reduce the cost of connectivity between SA and the rest of the world. The 3.8Tb cable is planned to stretch 13 000km from SA to include 10 African countries and terminate in the UK.

However, with less than 700 days to go before the 2010 kick-off, the timelines will be extremely tight, Erwin admitted.

He did not supply any direct answers to questions about who would construct the cable or when the marine survey would take place.

East coast competition

At the same briefing, Matsepe-Casaburri stated her department was also determined to see the completion of the Nepad Broadband ICT Network, or Uhurunet.

This is despite the fact that there are two competing undersea cables along Africa's east coast, namely Seacom and Eassy (East African Submarine Cable System).

"Uhurunet offers a different model to those projects and it also has a terrestrial aspect, the linking up of landlocked countries, that those private initiative don't have," she noted.

Matsepe-Casaburri said another aspect of Uhurunet would be to link the east and west coast projects around the North African coast.

She also pointed out that the various cable projects do not terminate in the same areas. She noted that Asia had become important for South African commerce and a cable extending there was needed.