Out-Law News 2 min. read
16 Dec 2015, 10:10 am
The 10,000 kilometre cable, which will run from South Africa, "will provide a step-change in the way internet connectivity is regarded in Africa", the firm said on 14 December.
LT said the cable will be linked to its 20,000 km terrestrial African fibre network, "enabling a reliable and affordable international connectivity service to landlocked and coastal countries in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa".
Liquid Sea will offer speeds of 20-30 terabytes per second (TBps), "up to 10 times the capacity of existing submarine cables in the region", LT said. The project is already fully funded and is estimated to be completed in two years.
The new cable "is expected to directly connect all coastal countries along the east coast of Africa and to provide new connectivity to the Middle East and Europe," LT said. "The project will include landing stations in several ports that are currently not served by existing subsea cables."
LT group chief executive officer Nic Rudnick said a tender request has been issued to international companies involved in the construction of submarine cables.
Rudnick said: "The Liquid Sea project reaffirms our commitment to building Africa’s digital future and removing any bottlenecks in providing the fastest and most reliable access to the internet to every single African on the continent. The impact of Liquid Sea will be a far more reliable and ultra-fast connection for governments, businesses, schools and homes in both coastal and land-locked countries across Africa."
According to LT, its African terrestrial fibre network "is the largest single, contiguous network that crosses many borders in Africa", complemented by a satellite service for rural and remote areas.
Last month, LT said it would be investing around $17.5 million in laying new fibre in South Africa’s northern provinces, providing connectivity to major cities and towns. "Wholesale capacity will be available to mobile and fixed-line operators, other service providers and businesses of all sizes," LT said.
The new fibre will be integrated with LT's existing terrestrial network in South Africa, which stretches from Pretoria to the country’s border with Zimbabwe, and then onward via its pan-African network to five main subsea cable systems landing in Africa, LT said.
The African Union’s 'action plan' for Africa for 2010-2015 (104-page / 1.53 MB PDF) said access to advanced information and communications technology (ICT) is critical to the long-term economic and social development of the continent.
"It has increasingly become essential that appropriate ICT infrastructure, applications and skills are in place and accessible to the population to close the development gap between Africa and the rest of the world," the plan said. "Although mobile telecommunications have experienced enormous growth in the past 10 years, access to broadband services remains very limited."
According to the World Bank’s 'private participation in infrastructure database', the telecoms sector in sub-Saharan Africa was the sector with the largest investment share (68%) between 1990 and 2015. Total telecoms investment in the region over the period amounted to more than $114 billion, with 208 telecoms projects reaching financial close, the database showed.
Research published last month by market analysts Ovum projected that the number of mobile broadband connections in Africa will reach one billion in 2020, up from 147 million at the end of 2014.
Ovum said the growth of mobile broadband in Africa over the next few years "will be driven by factors such as the ongoing rollout of 3G W-CDMA (wideband code division multiple access) and 4G LTE (long term evolution) networks on the continent and the increasing affordability of smartphones and other data devices".
