SEACOM African Cable System Growth and Challenges

SEACOM's African cable system was launched in 2009, marking a significant milestone in the continent's telecommunications history. The system spans over 17,000 kilometers of undersea and terrestrial fiber-optic cables.

This ambitious project was designed to provide a reliable and high-speed internet connection to countries along the East African coast. SEACOM's capacity to transmit data at speeds of up to 1.92 terabits per second was a game-changer for the region.

The system's growth was remarkable, with a reported 70% increase in internet penetration in countries connected to SEACOM. This surge in internet access had a positive impact on the economy, education, and healthcare sectors.

SEACOM's success also paved the way for other submarine cable systems to be built in Africa, further increasing the continent's connectivity and reducing reliance on satellite connections.

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East Africa's internet services were disrupted on Sunday due to subsea cable faults on the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) and the Seacom cable.

The cable cut impacted internet services in several countries, including Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, Comoros, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Mozambique, Mayotte, Madagascar, and Tanzania.

Telcos including Airtel, MTN, and Safaricom confirmed disruptions to their services and said they were rerouting traffic to compensate.

Kenya's internet service is back to normal, but for all other countries, services remained impacted to varying degrees as of Monday.

A cut on the EASSy club cable that runs between Sudan and South Africa was blamed for the outages, according to Ben Roberts, chief technology and innovation officer at Liquid Intelligent Technologies.

A fault had also been observed on the Seacom subsea cable that runs along a similar route but goes further up the Red Sea to Egypt.

The cause of the cable breaks has not yet been disclosed.

This is the second time this year that the Seacom cable has been affected by a subsea cable cut.

The breaks are the latest in a series of subsea cable cuts that have plagued internet users across most of Africa this year.

Seacom has been working to maintain traffic flow within Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa by leveraging its existing cable network for both transmission and IP services.

The company implemented rerouting protocols through alternative submarine cable routes such as Equiano, PEACE, and WACS to mitigate the impact on services destined for Europe and beyond.

This rerouting led to routing disruption, with some noticeable increase in latency for a lot of companies throughout the region.

Seacom has assured its customers of unaffected capacities, but the broader issue encompasses more than just available bandwidth.

CDNs and content behemoths like Netflix, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook might face challenges due to possibly strained capacity.

SEACOM has been rapidly expanding its presence across Africa, adding 8 new points of presence (POPs) across the continent. This move is expected to enable more African businesses to connect to cloud facilities and data centers across the world.

SEACOM has set up new POPs in Mombasa, Nairobi, Kampala, and South Africa, with plans for more open-access data centers in the East African capitals of Nairobi and Kampala. These facilities will increase competition among carriers and mobile network operators, leading to lowered costs and improved connection speeds of up to 100 Mbps and 100 Gbps.

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SEACOM is also establishing a new point of presence in South Africa with Teraco, catering specifically to content providers and enterprise customers. This new facility will serve as an important data recovery site for many operators.

SEACOM's expansion strategy includes acquiring South Africa's Fibre Co Telecommunications, which owned and operated a national open access dark fibre network. This acquisition further enabled SEACOM to scale and upgrade its "African Ring" by connecting its East and West coast submarine assets with a robust network of trans-South African fibre.

SEACOM's subsea cable system connects East Africa to South Africa, Europe, and Asia, offering a fibre express route that carries terabytes of capacity with speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 100 Gbps. SEACOM is the only African carrier to cover all five of the largest exchange points in Europe (London, Frankfort, Stockholm, Amsterdam, and Marseille), in addition to Mumbai.

SEACOM's expansion and growth have enabled it to become the preferred partner for African businesses, network carriers, and service providers.

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SEACOM's technology and infrastructure have been a game-changer for the continent, enabling high-speed internet connectivity to Europe and Asia.

The SEACOM cable is a 17,000-kilometre-long fibre-optic cable that spans across Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. It was officially switched on in 2009, providing the eastern and southern African countries with high-speed internet connectivity to Europe and Asia.

SEACOM has built an on-net European network, managed and operated by themselves, to deliver transport layer, internet protocol (IP), and multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) services to several cities in Europe, including Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Marseille, and Slough.

The cable is a loose tube design that uses multiple fibre types, including dispersion-shifted and non-zero dispersion-shifted fibres. It has over 150 repeaters, spaced along the cable many tens of kilometres apart, using optical amplifier repeaters with erbium-doped amplifiers.

SEACOM's subsea cable system offers a fibre express route that carries terabytes of capacity, with speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 100 Gbps. This has enabled African businesses to connect directly and reliably to local data centres, enhancing their digital transformation.

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Here are some of the cities connected to SEACOM's European network:

In 2020, SEACOM announced that it would more than double the capacity on its fibre-optic network, adding 1.7 Tbit/s to bring its total capacity to 3.2 Tbit/s along Africa's eastern and Southern coasts.

SEACOM has scaled its regional presence in Africa upwards, adding eight new points of presence across the continent. This move is expected to enable more African businesses to connect to cloud facilities and data centers across the world.

One new point of presence is Mombasa's iColo data centre, which is the first fully open data centre in Kenya. This carrier-neutral facility encourages competition in the local ICT sphere, helping to increase cloud-based service offerings for customers while driving down costs.

SEACOM is also establishing a new point of presence in South Africa with Teraco. This facility will cater specifically to content providers and enterprise customers, and will also serve as an important data recovery site for many operators.

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The new points of presence will provide a direct on-ramp to the SEACOM network, allowing businesses to connect directly and reliably to local data centres. This will enable more companies on the continent to embrace the cloud in a compliant manner, and enhance their digital transformation.

SEACOM's subsea cable system connects East Africa to South Africa, Europe, and Asia, offering a fibre express route that carries terabytes of capacity. The speeds range from 50 Mbps to 100 Gbps.

Here are the new points of presence established by SEACOM:

These new points of presence will help to increase cloud-based service offerings for customers, drive down costs, and enhance digital transformation for African businesses.

Cloud providers are setting up shop in Europe, with localised providers offering benefits to businesses.

Microsoft has already launched data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town, Africa's first Azure cloud regions.

This move has helped mitigate security, territorial, latency, and compliance concerns that discouraged cloud adoption in the region.

Businesses in Europe will enjoy faster connections and a more seamless experience by connecting to local data centres.

Connecting to data centres on the continent will still be faster than relying on computing power generated half a world away.

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Africa is playing catch-up in the telecoms arena, but governments in countries like Kenya, South Africa, and Ethiopia are prioritizing ICT development and access to broadband Internet as a key enabler of socio-economic upliftment.

Governments have been slow to warm up to sector privatization, but this has changed over the past decade, creating a local environment rich in opportunity for telcos to operate and grow.

With governments becoming more receptive to private investment, telcos are now operating in a local environment that's ripe for growth and investment decisions.

SEACOM has acquired FibreCo Telecommunications, a national open-access dark fibre network that runs along South Africa's highest-traffic transmission routes, further enabling SEACOM to scale and upgrade its "African Ring".

The acquisition connects SEACOM's East and West coast submarine assets with a robust network of trans-South African fibre, ensuring fully redundant high-speed ring protection around the African continent.

SEACOM is the only African carrier to cover all five of the largest exchange points in Europe, in addition to Mumbai.

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SEACOM has plans for new open-access PoPs coming to Nairobi, Kenya and Kampala, Uganda, providing a direct on-ramp to the SEACOM network and increasing cloud-based service offerings for customers while driving down costs.

SEACOM's subsea cable system connects East Africa to South Africa, Europe, and Asia, offering a fibre express route that carries terabytes of capacity with speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 100 Gbps.

Africa is playing catch-up in the telecoms arena, but governments in countries like Kenya, South Africa, and Ethiopia are prioritizing ICT development and access to broadband Internet as a key enabler of socio-economic upliftment.

In the past decade, there's been a significant shift in government attitudes towards privatization, creating a more receptive environment for private investment. This has led to a surge in opportunity for telcos to operate and grow in the region.

The enthusiasm for ICT development is palpable, with governments and private investors alike recognizing the potential for broadband Internet to drive economic growth and social change.

Governments are setting ambitious targets for ICT development, with a focus on expanding access to broadband Internet and promoting the growth of the digital economy.

In Kenya, for example, the government has prioritized the development of ICT infrastructure, including the construction of data centers and the expansion of fiber-optic networks.

The private sector is also playing a key role in driving ICT development in Africa, with companies like SEACOM investing heavily in the region's infrastructure and services.

SEACOM, a pan-African fiber optic services provider, has been at the forefront of ICT development in Africa, investing in subsea cables, data centers, and fiber-optic networks to connect businesses and communities across the continent.

Here are some key statistics on SEACOM's investments in Africa:

These investments are having a significant impact on the region, driving economic growth and improving access to broadband Internet for businesses and communities.

SEACOM has been a platinum sponsor of the African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) since 2012. They've been supporting the event with Internet connectivity and are looking forward to playing this role again.

The AfPIF event has provided a space for SEACOM to learn and develop, and to interact with like-minded individuals working toward a greater goal. It addresses the key interconnection, peering, and traffic exchange opportunities and challenges that Africa faces.

SEACOM launched Africa's first broadband submarine cable system along the eastern and southern coastlines in 2009, bringing high-quality and affordable Internet bandwidth to the continent. This marked a significant milestone in SEACOM's journey.

Today, SEACOM is the number one African-based service provider in the IP Transit market, both in terms of status and growth rate, as documented by Dyn. This reflects the investment and effort SEACOM has put into developing its IP/MPLS network.

SEACOM has also launched a connectivity services offering to the Enterprise Market in South Africa and Kenya, with a growth rate that has far surpassed the original targets set for the business in 2015. The demand for high-speed fibre Internet access at an affordable cost has been significant.

The SEACOM network has been able to reroute IP services through alternative cables like Equiano, PEACE, and WACS in case of disruptions.

This approach provides redundancy and ensures that a single point of failure doesn't cripple the network.

Diverse routing strategies like this one can significantly improve the resilience of global communications infrastructure.

Here are some key facts about the SEACOM network:

The funding for SEACOM was a significant undertaking, with initial private investment totaling $375 million. This investment came from various sources, including the developers, private South African investors, and a commercial loan from Nedbank.

The breakdown of the initial investment is quite interesting, with $75 million coming from the developers, $150 million from private South African investors, and $75 million as a commercial loan from Nedbank. The remaining $75 million was provided by Industrial Promotion Services (IPS).

IPS played a crucial role in the funding of SEACOM, investing $15 million in equity and a total of $60.4 million in debt from the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund and the FMO (Netherlands). This investment has a significant impact on the current ownership structure of SEACOM.

Here's a breakdown of the current ownership structure:

The total investment in SEACOM has been substantial, with the project being variously described as a $600 and a $650 million project. This investment has enabled SEACOM to upgrade its infrastructure, increasing its carrying capacity to 2.6 terabits per second (Tbit/s) in May 2012, and then to 12 Tbit/s in 2014.

The SEACOM network has brought unprecedented capacity, quality of bandwidth, and connectivity to Africa, with simultaneous events held in South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Mozambique.

The demonstration showcased the network's capabilities, with direct access to true broadband connectivity, live broadcasts, and interactive real-time presentations across the system.

SEACOM collaborated with Cisco Systems to create a voice, data, and video platform, relying on the SEACOM network, to facilitate a collaborative environment.

A one-gigabit-per-second live international connection was established at all locations, and a live high-definition video feed was transmitted over an Internet Protocol (IP) network to interconnect representatives and dignitaries across the five countries.

Here are some key facts about the SEACOM network:

Companies can implement diverse routing to provide redundancy, ensuring a single point of failure doesn't cripple the network. This approach is exemplified by Seacom's rerouting of IP services through alternative cables like Equiano, PEACE, and WACS.

Advanced monitoring technologies can detect faults more swiftly, enabling quicker response times and reducing downtime. Employing AI and machine learning algorithms can predict potential failure points, facilitating preemptive actions.

Forming alliances with other network operators and consortia can enhance resource sharing and collective response strategies, improving the overall resilience of the global communications infrastructure. This is a key aspect of strategic partnerships and collaborations.

Investing in the physical security and durability of cables, especially in conflict-prone or environmentally sensitive zones, can prevent intentional and accidental damages. This is a crucial aspect of infrastructure investments.

Engaging with international bodies and governments to secure undersea cables as critical global infrastructure can lead to stricter regulations, recommendations, and protections against intentional sabotage. The EU Recommendation on the Security and Resilience of Submarine Cable Infrastructures is a notable example of this approach.

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