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<DIV><BR>some food for thought before the friday meeting........ </DIV>
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<DIV><BR>Reliance to build submarine cable to rival EASSy <BR><BR>By A CORRESPONDENT <BR>The EastAfrican <BR><BR>Reliance Corporation, one of India's largest information technology <BR>firms, says that it will construct a submarine cable along the <BR>eastern Africa seaboard by 2009. <BR><BR>The fibre optic cable, the company said recently, will link South <BR>Africa and Kenya, and also serve Tanzania, Mauritius, Mozambique and <BR>Madagascar as well as some land-locked countries. The cable link will <BR>be laid down by Reliance subsidiary, Flag Telecom <BR><BR>Last December, Reliance announced that it would invest $1.5 billion <BR>to put up the world s most extensive Internet access network through <BR>submarine cables covering more than 60 countries. <BR><BR>News of the latest plans to lay a cable along the eastern seaboard <BR>are likely to cause a certain level of alarm among the partner states <BR>involved with the controversy-prone East African Submarine Cable
<BR>System (EASSy) cable. By last December, only 12 countries out of the <BR>targeted 23 stretching from South Africa to the Sudan had pledged <BR>support to the project. <BR><BR>Proponents of an eastern seaboard fibre optic cable say that it would <BR>lower Internet slashing bandwidth costs by as much as a third, and <BR>spur the development of outsourcing centres along the eastern coast <BR>to compete with similar centres in Asia. <BR><BR>Valued at $300 million, EASSy itself is planned to run from Mtunzini <BR>in South Africa to Port Sudan in Sudan, with landing points in six <BR>countries, and connected to at least five landlocked countries. The <BR>thinking is that these countries will subsequently no longer have to <BR>rely on expensive satellite systems to carry voice and data services. <BR>The project, to be funded largely by the World Bank and the <BR>Development Bank of Southern Africa, was initiated on January 2003. <BR><BR>Since inception, however,
the EASSy project which is now expected to <BR>be completed by the end of 2008 has been dogged by disagreements over <BR>financing and access among partner states, with Kenya opting to sit <BR>the project out. Kenyan officials were reportedly particularly peeved <BR>by South African efforts to control the project, reports indicated. <BR><BR>Last September, Kenya announced that it would seek funding to finance <BR>its own undersea cable running from Mombasa to Fujairah in the Gulf <BR>of Oman in a bid to accelerate the emergence of the country a <BR>business outsourcing centre. The cable, Nairobi said, would be made <BR>available to any interested party along the way. <BR><BR>Analysts say that the announcement by Reliance, by introducing a <BR>third player, could change the dynamics somewhat, raising the <BR>possibility that the Kenyan government may seek a partnership with <BR>the Indian multinational to counter-balance the South African-led EAS<BR><BR><A
href="http://www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/current/News/News1902078.htm" target=_blank>http://www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/current/News/News1902078.htm</A><BR><BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>secretariat mailing list<BR>secretariat@kictanet.or.ke<BR><A href="http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/secretariat" target=_blank>http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/secretariat</A><BR><BR>This message was sent to: rebeccawanjiku@yahoo.com<BR>Unsubscribe or change your options at <A href="http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/secretariat/rebeccawanjiku%40yahoo.com" target=_blank>http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/secretariat/rebeccawanjiku%40yahoo.com</A></DIV><BR></div><br>
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