FAQ

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.

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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.

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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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Is SEACOM really the first to connect eastern Africa to Europe and Asia?

Yes. SEACOM went live in July 2009 - the first submarine cable to have completed construction on the route between South Africa and Europe via East Africa and Mumbai (India).

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How is SEACOM capacity reaching inland across provinces, regions and cities?

SEACOM is using its subsidiaries and local partners in each country, who are licensed and established to carry communication infrastructure, to establish backhaul solutions/ last mile land-based fibre infrastructure, into landlocked countries.

The success of SEACOM would not be possible without infrastructure which links beach landing stations to a metropolitan PoP (Point of Presence). Our partnership approach makes use of providers with extensive inland infrastructure in Southern, Central, West and Eastern Africa to link landing stations to main centers and onwards to neighboring countries.

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How was the SEACOM cable laid?

The process of laying the cable is a very interesting one. First, a marine survey (topographic survey of the ocean floor) is undertaken to determine the most benign route to follow. The data is then fed into software that provides a manufacturing specification for the cable itself. The cable is then manufactured completely on land and loaded onto large vessels. In SEACOM’s case, three cable-laying ships were contracted with the largest carrying some 6,000 km of cable.

The cable is heavily reinforced and dropped at depths of over 4km’s under the ocean surface. As the cable approaches shallower water, it is buried beneath the ocean floor by a specialised device, called a Burial Plough.

The cable is then less vulnerable to any potential interference close to the shoreline.

Check out our youtube.com/seacomlive to view the video of the cable laying process.

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What have been the benefits of SEACOM since launch?

Can you remember not being able to view videos from YouTube? How about when you couldn’t get uncapped internet? How about streaming audio to listen to your favourite radio station? How long have you been able to download and watch shows on your computer?

Since SEACOM’s launch, the effects of broadband connectivity have changed the shape of the telecommunications industry in the countries it connects, not to mention the lives of individuals who now have connectivity at their fingertips. Affordable connectivity. 

In the past 18 months, SEACOM has seen up to 10x uptake growth in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. 

High definition TVs, peer to peer networks, IPTV and the Internet are the new reality. 

This change in access has had a number of knock-on effects including governments’ broadband policies to ensure ‘broadband for all’, the influx of submarine cables opening the door for terrestrial broadband developers and the availability of cheaper broadband which has allowed a whole generation access to video sharing, social media networks, and information that otherwise would have been impossible.

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Can you quantify pricing trends?

Access to broadband is key to socio-economic development in a continent that is often left behind in the modern technological boom. The need to build infrastructure to bring broadband to the end user, including through fibre-to-home options, is part of this access.

By way of example, the government of Tanzania has embarked on a national fibre backbone rollout to connect population centres around the country. National carriers have realised that they have to upgrade their networks to move large amounts of bandwidth. For example, Kenya has been building three different national networks, South Africa is developing four national networks, and the government of Rwanda is rolling out huge fibre networks throughout the country. Ethiopia is now also following the same path.

Many telecommunications companies also continue to invest heavily in data offerings in order to capitalize on the exponential increase in demand for data services; a trend which is supported by the wider availability of smart phones. 3G networks are continuously being expanded and rolled-out in major towns and beyond.

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What have been the major challenges for SEACOM in the undersea cable space in Africa?

SEACOM was the first cable to land in east Africa and that in itself brought about a myriad of unprecedented challenges; as is often the case with pioneering projects. 

SEACOM was told by many potential investors that connecting Africa to India and Europe via fibre on the East coast was not a feasible business venture – a pipe dream. This was further exacerbated by the stagnation of other cables which had begun investigation almost a decade before. 

However, perseverance and the belief in the growth potential of the continent saw SEACOM maintain an incredibly tight project timeline of less than two years between the financial closing and commercial service. A remarkable achievement when compared to many other similar ventures.

By delivering so effectively, SEACOM has built trust in the regions that it connects and laid the path for other cable landings that will contribute to a much needed competitive African telecommunications environment.

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How is the cable maintained?

SEACOM has multiple suppliers at different parts of the network who are responsible for maintaining the cable system. They also provide secure storage for supplies and accessories in a regional depot.

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Who constructed the SEACOM cable?

A turnkey contractor manufactured and laid the cable. There are only three such major contractors in the world with access to large fleets of vessels and manufacturing facilities.

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Could you explain what "redundancy" entails?

Redundancy relates to the ability to migrate services through a secondary channel when the primary channel fails. This is a critical element of any communications network and SEACOM has worked tirelessly to ensure that all its customers can benefit from multiple redundancy options available at the flip of a switch.

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