SEACOM is open for business and ready to supply turnkey solutions for Africa's "Broadband on Demand" needs.
Johannesburg - 18 February 2008
Many milestones have been reached in the past few months culminating with, on 9 November 2007, the announcement that SEACOM was fully funded with African investors taking a significant majority stake of 76.25% in the project. SEACOM's investors now include:
- Industrial Promotion Services (26.25%), an arm of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development
- Venfin Limited (25%)
- Herakles Telecom LLC (23.75%)
- Convergence Partners (12.5%)
- Shanduka Group (12.5%)
The debt funding will be provided by Nedbank Capital and Investec Bank, two well renowned South African financial institutions.
The full construction was initiated on the back of the marine survey and pre-engineering work that Tyco completed in October 2007. Subsequently, SEACOM and Tyco Telecommunications brought the construction contract for the full delivery of the system in force on 13 November 2007.
Brian Herlihy, SEACOM president, said: "This US$10m venture investment permitted SEACOM to complete long-lead time work and initiate an eighteen month construction programme to further entrench our ready for service date and ensure maximum traction in what is today, a very tight supply market.
"SEACOM is excited to have kept this 'slot' in the manufacturing schedule as international demand for cables has sky-rocketed pushing out the delivery of new cables worldwide."
Another achievement included the finalisation of the agreement with Telecom Egypt (TE) to use the TE cable station in Ras Sidr, Egypt near Suez, to land the cable. From there, SEACOM will own a system within the TE Transit Corridor to reach France seamlessly through the Mediterranean.
In December 2007, the marine survey from South Africa to Kenya was successfully completed and construction of the cable started. The survey vessel "Fugro Gauss", which began its surveying work in June 2007 off the South African shore, mobilised in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, in January and is now continuing surveying work northwards.
Of course, a project of this magnitude requires Environmental Approval (EA) activities to be undertaken. These are being finalised with final site visits taking place in late 2007. The submission of applications is now underway.
On the technical side, Tyco telecommunications and equipment vendors are in consultations to identify the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) Network that will best support SEACOM's fibre optic transmission systems whilst providing the highest levels of redundancy. A final decision is expected shortly.
"With the construction now underway, and about 16 months left to commissioning date, we are on schedule to meet the bandwidth needs of the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa.
"We look forward to an exciting time as SEACOM powers ahead to become a real and tangible partner to the bandwidth hungry African economies that it will serve," concluded Herlihy.
