It seems likely that the next three to five years will satisfy the high local demand for fiber backbones, with the long-awaited glut of international bandwidth finally becoming a reality for Africa. This is according to the findings of a BMI-TechKnowledge (BMI-T) report called the "SADC telecoms opportunity".
According to Brian Neilson, director of research for BMI-T, the report highlights that plans to begin the construction of a regional fiber network are underway. "Talks are being held to ensure a harmonized approach, so that the regional projects do not have an unnecessary duplication of facilities," he says.
Nielson says the development has the perceived benefits of enabling African states to share international bandwidth traffic and revenues, and thus avoid the high cost of fixed-line transmission via Europe or the USA. The report, which shows that southern Africa still has one of the lowest fixed teledensities in the world, states that the next challenge, after the installation of bandwidth, will be in making the bandwidth available right through to the last land mile.
"This will be achievable through high-quality and affordable fixed-line access networks," he says. "Fixed wireless technology will have an increasingly important role to play in this regard, while satellite will retain an important niche role, in both backbone and access networks," Neilson adds.
He goes on to say that, because data services will be the major driver, the growth of Internet bandwidth is expected to continue, as new fiber projects come on stream from 2006.
BMI-T says the proposed East African submarine cable system (EASSY) is expected to be completed by 2007, with its letter of intent already signed by 16 operators. It is expected to have an initial capacity of 620GBps, which is seen as ample for the region"s requirement. It will serve the southern and eastern regions of the continent.
COMTEL, another proposed access network, which will run on an ATM platform, is designed to connect landlocked countries to the submarine cables of SEA ME/FLAG and EASSY. Both EASSY and COMTEL are expected to cost up to US$250 million, while the entire regional cabling project, including necessary support development and infrastructure, will require a total investment of between $700 million and $1 billion.
Together with SAT-3, which was inaugurated in 2002 and serves 15 countries, and the SADC Regional Information Infrastructure (SRII), the continent will have a regional network that has sufficient capacity to meets its needs for the foreseeable future.
"The benefits of the system will include international traffic retention and sharing across African states and general access to broadband. But the challenge to accomplishing this system will be achieving interconnection, regional harmonization and dispute resolution," Neilson concludes.