Opening up Affordable Bandwidth in Africa
| Fibre for Africa
Opening up Affordable Bandwidth in Africa |
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| Why we need affordable international bandwidth About SAT3 About EASSy News Resources APC Africa | HOME › About EASSy
Check this...Tracking cables The undersea cable environment around the African continent continues to evolve. Proposed cables appear, disappear, merge. Steve Song from the Shuttleworth Foundation is keeping track. SAT-3 reinforces market monopolies in Africa - Study Ownership of the SAT-3 cable by telecoms incumbents in Africa has reinforced their market positions, APC study finds. About EASSyEASSy is a moving target. For the latest updates on cable developments, click here.
The eight coastal countries are: Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa and Madagascar. Eritrea has shown no interest in the project. Eleven land-locked countries will be connected to the system: Ethiopia; Lesotho; Uganda; Swaziland; Rwanda; Malawi; Burundi; Zimbabwe; Zambia; Botswana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The system will be capable of carrying 320 giga bits per second end-to-end, and the cable length is approximately 9 900km. The project cost is estimated to be US$200-million. The EASSy consortium believes that the system will be ready for service by the end of 2007. To date, 27 Parties have signed the project Memorandum of Understanding. Amongst these are:
1. Botswana Telecom Corporation Only five of the African consortium members are not incumbent telecoms companies. Opening up EASSy In the wake of what he calls the "EASSy fallout", Eric Osiakwan goes back to the basics of open access to get the project's engines started again.
Behind the IssueArguments for open vs closed access: How EASSy fares The high price of international fibre bandwidth in Africa is largely a function of the monopoly structure that has been used to build SAT3. SAT3's membership is closed and its transactions and pricing are not transparent. Its members have sought to use its capacity as a distinct income stream rather than as a way to encourage the broader growth of their business. This is what can be described as "closed access". Does EASSy fit? While more and cheaper telecommunications are needed across Africa, EASSy may not be the answer, argues Roland Alden. State of play: Four years on where are we? French telco giant Alcatel has bagged the tender for the EASSy cable. But what is really happening on the ground to make sure the important 'open access model' is implemented? Two steps forward, three steps back In September, East Africa looked so close, and yet so far, to modernising its telecommunications infrastructure. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) hosted a two-day meeting in Rwanda to oversee the signing of a protocol authorising the construction and operation of the EASSy cable. But despite the promise of the endeavour, only seven of 23 participating countries showed up. Nepad moves ahead with ICT plans One of the current objectives of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) is to ensure that all African countries are connected to one another and the rest of the world by a broadband cable system. And EASSy is its flagship initiative...
Big five banks fund ICTs in Africa Five international banks have teamed up to provide US$170-million in loans to develop ICT infrastructure to Eastern and Southern African countries. The banks are: Africa Development Bank, the World Bank, Southern Africa Development Bank, the European Development Bank and Kreditanstalt Für Wiederaufbau of Germany. 'Open access is no longer just a concept' The Communication Regulators’ Association of Southern Africa (CRASA) is a forum of communications regulators and other ICT services stakeholders in Southern Africa. CRASA’s objectives include introducing effective competition through liberalization, and promoting an effective and efficient regulatory environment. CHAKULA, the e-newsletter for APC's Africa Policy Monitor, spoke to its executive secretary, Isidoro Pedro da Silva, following a workshop on open access held in Johannesburg. 'Go slow on unilateral cables' CIPESA's latest newsletter deals with various EASSy issues and opinions. [.pdf download]
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