[kictanet] [Fwd: [Fibre-for-africa] EASSy breaks fresh ground]

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EASSy breaks fresh ground

By Wairagala Wakabi – CIPESA/ Fibre for Africa
Kampala, June 11, 2007

The East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) has concluded
interconnection agreements with three cable systems to carry traffic
between Africa, Europe and Asia. It has also included the Comoros in its
planned fibre network, to which 29 African entities are party.

The cables are SAFE/SAT3, SEA ME-WE and FLAG, according to John Sihra, the
coordinator of EASSy and a director with Tanzanian operator ZANTEL. The
SAT3/WASC cable runs from Portugal, through Spain, Senegal, Ivory Coast,
Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Angola to South Africa. SAFE
begins from South Africa, to La Reunion, Mauritius, on to India and
Malaysia. FLAG covers the Indian sub-continent and is extending to the
Middle East and North Africa, while SEA ME-WE runs in the Middle East and
North Africa.

Sihra and other members of the EASSy steering committee ended a three-day
meeting in Kampala, Uganda last Friday June 8 to finalise legal paperwork
for the interconnection deals and the inclusion of the Comoros, among
others. They also harmonised the various legal documents they had drawn up
since they signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in December 2003.

Open Access
Sihra and other parties to the EASSy MoU told Fibre for Africa that the
EASSy project cost remained $235 million, and reiterated that the cable
would be operated along open access principles.

“Even 10 years from now other operators who come on board will get
capacity at the same price as existing operators,” said Sihra. “We have
had some pressure from NEPAD (the New Partnership for African Development)
to make sure the project takes into account the expectation of regional
governments, namely that capacity pricing should be competitive and cost
based, and that new companies have non-discriminatory access to it. We
have addressed these concerns.”

But at exactly what price shall EASSy bandwidth come? “We cannot give
exact prices now,” he said. “There are many competing cables coming up;
everyone now wants to build a cable round east Africa’s coast. They were
sleeping but EASSy woke them up,” he added, suggesting that revealing at
what price EASSy would lease out its bandwidth could play into the hands
of competitors.

Completion date
With EASSy expected to be ready for commercial operations in the fourth
quarter of 2008, signatories to the MoU said they were certain to be the
first cable on the eastern coast of Africa. They promised competitive
prices and high quality services, which they believed would make EASSy the
most viable marine cable in the region. The actual laying of cables, which
will be done by Alcatel Lucent Submarine Networks of France with whom a
contract was signed on March 9 2007, will take 6-7 months.

A detailed feasibility study was concluded, so has an environment impact
assessment – which the operators said found the cable would not negatively
impact on the marine ecosystem. A marine survey is due to start, to map
the cable route, and ascertain whether the findings of earlier studies are
accurate regarding best route and length of the fibre system.

Landing points
Under the new arrangement there will be landing points at Grand Comoro and
at Mayotte, and these will be funded by the Comoros government. Their
inclusion will bring to 10 the number of EASSy landing points – the others
being at Mtunzini in South Africa, Maputo (Mozambique), Toliary
(Madagascar), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Mombasa (Kenya), Mogadishu
(Somalia), Djibouti (Republic of Djibouti) and Port Sudan (Sudan).

The operators said because EASSy is regional in nature with shareholders
from 17 countries, and because these shareholders are not in EASSy to make
money from bandwidth sales but to use the cable to improve their services,
EASSy bandwidth would be competitively priced and the cable would be
especially viable. “We shall be the first cable to go into water, and for
that we shall have an advantage,” said Sihra, adding that operators who
will lease from third parties who will be in the business of selling
bandwidth will end up with high costs and low capacity.

The operators said the interconnection agreements they had concluded with
other cables would enable EASSy to offer the public and other operators
services from the point of origin of the call to any part of the world.
“International carriers like BT, France Telecom, and Sauditel are part of
EASSy and we will have multiple choices for accessing the international
system, which will also make us competitive,” one official said.

Funding
Donald Nyakairu, chairman of the EASSy finance committee, said their
funding was all in place, with parties such as MTN and Vodacom having
contributed directly, while others would contribute through the Special
Purpose Vehicle (SPV) known as the Western Indian Ocean Cable Company
(WIOCC) which MoU partners have set up.

He said the maximum amount of loans EASSy could accept was $170 million
but it was likely that borrowed money would not exceed $110 million. The
Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) announced early in June that it
was ready to commit up to $40 million to EASSy but promoters say they
might not need all of DBSA’s kitty.

Backhaul system
Nyakairu, also chair of the East African Backhaul System (EABS) and
corporation secretary of uganda telecom, said by the time EASSy is
completed, there will be a fibre system running from Mombasa, through
Nairobi, the Uganda-Kenya border town of Malaba and all the way to the
Uganda’s capital Kampala. The network will also have extended from Kampala
through the Uganda-Rwanda border town of Kabale, to Kigali (Rwanda),
through to Bujumbura, to the Tanzanian border and mainland, and onto the
landing point at the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam.

“From the Uganda-Rwanda perspective, we see no problem of hooking up from
Mombasa all the way to Rwanda,” said Noel Meier, chief executive of MTN
Uganda. Telkom Kenya is this year extending the fibre to Malaba from where
Ugandan operators will pick it up. MTN currently has fibre from Kampala to
the town of Bugiri not far from Malaba; while uganda telecom leases Uganda
Electricity Transmission Company capacity that carries fibre to Tororo
town, also near the border.

On the western side, MTN has fibre to the Ugandan town of Mbarara, and
uganda telecom is due to build fibre from there to the Rwandan border
where it will link to the fibre that MTN Rwandatel is erecting to that
point.

Within Uganda, the EABS is expected to be hooked to a national fibre
backbone which government is building with Chinese funding of up to $110
m. A backhaul system similar to EABS will be developed by operators in
southern Africa.

Parties to the MoU
Parties to the EASSy MoU comprise of 11 operators who are 100% government
owned and 18 who are either partially government owned or fully private
sector-owned.  They are:

1)	Botswana Telecom
2)	Onatel (Burundi)
3)	Telecel (Burundi)
4)	Comoro Telecoms
5)	Djibouti Telecoms
6)	Ethiopia Telecoms Corporation
7)	Kenya Telkom
8)	Kenya Data Networks
9)	Lesotho Telecom Authority
10)	Telcom Malagasy (Madagascar)
11)	France Telecom (Mayotte)
12)	Mauritius Telecom
13)	Telecom de Mozambique
14)	Vodacom (Mozambique)
15)	MTN Rwanda
16)	Dalkon (Somalia)
17)	MTN South Africa
18)	Telkom South Africa
19)	Vodacom (South Africa)
20)	Neotel (South Africa)
21)	Canartel (Sudan)
22)	Sudatel (Sudan)
23)	Satcom Tanzania
24)	Vodacom Tanzania
25)	ZANTEL (Tanzania)
26)	Tanzania Telecoms Company (TTCL)
27)	MTN Uganda
28)	ZAMTEL (Zambia_
29)	Tel.One (Zimbabwe)

The non-African members are: BT (UK), Saudi Telecom, VSNL/Teleglobe
(India), AT&T (USA), Verizon/ ex MCI (USA), France Telecom, and Etisalat
(United Arab Emirates).

Ends

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