SEACOM: Private African Investment Running Ahead
of Donor Funded Initiatives

SEACOM is a 1.28 Tbps capacity undersea cable linking South and East Africa to Europe and Asia via the Red Sea, Egypt and the Mediterranean. The EASSy undersea fibre optic cable project in comparison goes from South and East Africa to Sudan. SEACOM plans to deliver open access to capacity and landing infrastructure which is expected to drive international backbone prices down by 90 per cent. The main difference between these systems is that EASSy is a consortium structure for carriers and is funded by International Finance Corporation and other Development Financial Institutions and well as 20 telecommunications operators, while SEACOM is fully privately owned with a 76.25 per cent African ownership. SEACOM’s African shareholders (Industrial Promotion Services, Venfin, Convergence Partners and Shanduka) are not telecommunications operators but have sector knowledge and relationships. Their international partner, Herakles Telecom has management expertise. Project finance is provided by Nedbank capital and Investec Bank. While EASSy has suffered from several delays in implementation due to the lack of consensus among parties, SEACOM’s deployment is already underway with ships laying cable and cable stations under construction in January 2009. The Ready for Service date is the 27 June 2009.

Source: Author from SEACOM and EASSy Status Reports in December 2008 and January 2009.