Knowledge Centre

How we laid the cable

Latest Questions Answered

Who owns SEACOM?

SEACOM is 76.56% African owned by:

• Industrial Promotion Services (26.56%), an arm of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development 
• Remgro Limited (25%) 
• Convergence Partners (12.5%) 
• Shanduka Group (12.5%) 

The remaining 23.44% is held by Herakles Telecom LLC.

What are some of the opportunities unleashed by cheap and readily available broadband?

Cheap and available broadband gives Africans’ access to an array of Internet based products like:

• High speed web surfing
• Video searching (e.g. Youtube)
• Online education
• Video conferencing
• Cloud computing, gaming
• Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
• Disaster recovery and backups
• Intra Africa communications (enterprise/government/education)
• Reduction in costs of communications

SEACOM is the enabler to open the broadband tap for African consumers. Opening the tap, opens up opportunities for individuals, for companies, for government. These new products will drive an integrated communication culture and African content generation as we build the African Internet.

What exactly is SEACOM?

SEACOM was the first submarine cable to land and bring affordable Internet access to eastern Africa, a region that previously relied solely on satellite connectivity.

SEACOM launched the first east African submarine fibre optic cable in 2009, bringing high quality, affordable broadband capacity to Africa through the sale of wholesale international bandwidth and associated services on an open-access basis.

Stretching some 17,000km along the eastern and southern African coastlines and onwards to India and Europe, the SEACOM system has already connected many African countries including South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Djibouti and Ethiopia. In many instances, SEACOM’s arrival heralded access to previously unavailable bulk bandwidth.

But SEACOM is more than a cable. As a pan-African ICT enabler, driving the development of the African Internet, SEACOM is creating a network of connectivity.

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