SEACOM submarine cable lights up Africa

New fibre optic sub-sea cable goes live today, createing a digital superhighway from Africa to Europe, Asia and beyond

London, 23 July, 2009 - SEACOM's sub-sea cable has launched today, providing southern and eastern Africa with high capacity connectivity at much lower rates than traditional satellite networks. The 17,000 kilometre intercontinental fibre optic network will also connect to Interoute's pan-European fibre optic network from its landing point in Marseille, providing access to major business centres in Europe and throughout the rest of the world.  

The agreement will allow Interoute and SEACOM to open up new opportunities for telecommunications companies and enterprises in the region, as well as supporting the growing demand for broadband.  The region has seen a phenomenal increase in demand for Internet connectivity, with users rising by 1,062% from 2000 to 2008*.   

Gareth Williams, Interoute CEO commented "The launch of SEACOM is an important milestone for African Telecoms and we are delighted to be a part of it; providing the European connectivity from the cable's landing point in Marseille. Demand for bandwidth across Africa has been outstripping supply for some time, in fact demand grew 1, 062 per cent from 2000 to 2008 alone, so the new cable is crucial for the growth of business on the continent."   

 The SEACOM fibre optic cable runs along the east coast of Africa, creating a digital super highway that links South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya with Europe and South Asia.  The cable extends to Marseilles, where it connects to Interoute's network providing a speed of light route to Europe, North America and the Middle East, as well as access to Interoute's range of wholesale and enterprise services.  The new sub-sea cable will offer 1.28TB/s of capacity, enabling high definition TV, peer to peer networks, and IPTV, as well as support surging Internet demand.   

"Today is a historic occasion for Africa and marks the dawn of a new era for communications between the continent and the rest of the world. The tireless efforts of the past 24 months have come to fruition and we are proud to be part of building the foundations of Africa's future infrastructure through the provision of unprecedented and affordable high capacity and connectivity in southern and eastern Africa," said Brian Herlihy, SEACOM CEO. "In addition, linking our system to the Interoute network provides vital access to Europe and the rest of the world, opening up the region to important business hubs across the globe." 

"From a business point of view this connection is a vital step forward for countries that have, up until now, had to rely on expensive satellite connections for communications. It will give access to information from global sources and enable businesses to work effectively with organisations across the globe using this high capacity connection.," said Gareth Williams.  

* Source: Internet World Stats, 21 December 2008   

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About Interoute

Interoute is the owner operator of Europe's most advanced and densely connected voice and data network, encompassing over 57,000 kms of lit fibre and 59 data centres. Its full-service next generation network serves more than 12,000 customers across a broad range of sectors from finance to retail and every major European incumbent, as well as the major operators of North America, East and South Asia, governments, universities and research agencies. These organisations find Interoute the ideal partner for hosting content, providing wholesale transit services, corporate access or creating new services. With established operations throughout mainland Europe, North America and Dubai Interoute also owns and operates dense city networks throughout Europe's major business centres. More than €1 billion in e-commerce transactions flows through its data centres each day, making Interoute a key part of Europe's Digital Supply Chain. www.interoute.com     

About SEACOM

SEACOM, the underwater cable project, is privately funded and over three quarter African owned, assists communication carriers in south and east Africa through the sale of wholesale international capacity to global networks via India and Europe.  The undersea fibre optic cable system will provide African retail carriers with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth, removing the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting east and southern African economic growth.  SEACOM will be the first cable to provide broadband to countries in east Africa which, at the moment, rely entirely on expensive satellite connections. Within Africa, South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania and Kenya are inter-connected via a protected ring structure. Additionally, a second express fibre pair is provided from South Africa to Kenya. These two fibre pairs have a combined capacity of 1.28Tbs. Express fibre pairs are also provided from Kenya to France into a PoP in Marseilles, and from Tanzania to India into the PoP in Mumbai. SEACOM has procured fibre capacity from Marseilles to London as part of the SEACOM network.

For further information please visit, www.seacom.mu

Interoute PR contacts: 

Ruth Jones / Susannah Wyeth / Rebecca Gregory / Katie Swan
Speed Communications
+44 (0) 20 7842 3200
interoute@speedcommunications.com