SEACOM launched Africa’s first broadband submarine cable system along the continent’s Eastern and Southern coasts in 2009. SEACOM is privately owned and operated.

Technology and cable structure

Fibre-optic pairs are provided from Mtunzini to France to a point of presence (PoP) in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

, as well as from Tanzania to India into a PoP in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

. SEACOM has also built an on-net European network, managed and operated by themselves, to deliver

transport layer In computer networking, the transport layer is a conceptual division of methods in the layered architecture of protocols in the network stack in the Internet protocol suite and the OSI model. The protocols of this layer provide end-to-end ...

internet protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. ...

(IP), and

multiprotocol label switching Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on labels rather than network addresses. Whereas network addresses identify endpoints the labels identif ...

(MPLS) services from Africa to the following cities in Europe, and vice versa: * Amsterdam, Netherlands * Frankfurt, Germany * London, United Kingdom * Marseille, France * Slough, United Kingdom Through third-party networks in Europe, SEACOM also delivers these services to other locations in Europe not covered in the list of cities above. The SEACOM cable is deployed with a mixture of double armour cable, single armour cable, special protection cable (with a metallic wrap below the insulator, rather than steel wires), and lightweight cable without armour, used in deep waters. Shallower water cable typically has more protective armour than offshore, deeper cable. The cable is a loose tube design that determines the amount and relative location along the transmission path of each type of fibre. Multiple fibre types are used in the cable: dispersion-shifted and non-zero dispersion-shifted. The repeaters are optical amplifier

repeater In telecommunications, a repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it. Repeaters are used to extend transmissions so that the signal can cover longer distances or be received on the other side of an obstruction. Som ...

s, using

erbium Erbium is a chemical element with the symbol Er and atomic number 68. A silvery-white solid metal when artificially isolated, natural erbium is always found in chemical combination with other elements. It is a lanthanide, a rare-earth element, or ...

-doped

amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It may increase the power significantly, or its main effect may be to boost t ...

s. There are over 150 repeaters in the SEACOM system. They are spaced along the cable many tens of kilometres apart with the distance between repeaters varying depending on the segment in the system. Repeater spacing is determined by a variety of factors, including the transmission capacity of the fibres in the cable and the distance between

cable landing point A cable landing point is the location where a submarine or other underwater cable makes landfall. The term is most often used for the landfall points of submarine telecommunications cables and submarine power cables. The landing will either be d ...

s. On 23 July 2009, the cable began operations, providing the eastern and southern African countries of Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa with high-speed Internet connectivity to Europe and Asia. The cable was officially switched on in simultaneous events held across the region, in

Mombasa Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of the British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital city status. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...

, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. On 4 August 2020, SEACOM announced that it would more than double the capacity on its fibre-optic network by the end of August 2020. The continent’s first broadband submarine cable system operator will add 1.7Tbit/s to its network, bringing its total capacity to 3.2Tbit/s along Africa’s eastern and Southern coasts.

Funding

SEACOM is privately-funded, and approximately 75 percent African-owned. Initial private investment in the SEACOM project was US$375 million: $75 million from the developers, $150 million from private South African investors, and $75 million as a commercial loan from

Nedbank Nedbank Group is a financial services group in South Africa offering wholesale and retail banking services as well as insurance, asset management, and wealth management. Nedbank Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nedbank Group. Nedbank's ...

(South Africa). The remaining $75 million was provided by Industrial Promotion Services (IPS), which is the industrial and infrastructure arm of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development. The IPS investment was funded by $15 million in equity, and a total of $60.4 million in debt from the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund and the FMO (Netherlands). Current ownership structure is as follows: 30 percent IPS, 30 percent

Remgro Remgro Limited is an investment holding company based in Stellenbosch, South Africa. It has interests in banking, financial services, packaging, glass products, medical services, mining, petroleum, beverage, food and personal care products. I ...

, 15 percent

Sanlam Sanlam is a South African financial services group headquartered in Bellville, Western Cape, South Africa. Sanlam is the largest insurance company in Africa. It is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Namibian Stock Exchange and the ...

, 15 percent Convergence Partners, and 10 percent by Brian Herlihy. The cable is variously described as a $600 and a $650 million project, and has seen a number of upgrades to landing station infrastructure, national backhaul and increases to carrying capacity, with an increase to 2.6 terabits per second (Tbit/s) in May 2012, and then to 12 Tbit/s in 2014.

Landing points

The

s are: *

, France *

Djibouti Djibouti, ar, جيبوتي ', french: link=no, Djibouti, so, Jabuuti officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red ...

, Kenya * Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania *

Maputo Maputo (), formerly named Lourenço Marques until 1976, is the capital, and largest city of Mozambique. Located near the southern end of the country, it is within of the borders with Eswatini and South Africa. The city has a population of 1,0 ...

, Mozambique * Mtunzini, South Africa *

, India SEACOM Partner Network landing points include: * Yzerfontein, South Africa * Lagos, Nigeria * Accra, Ghana * Fujairah, UAE

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:SEACOM (African Submarine Cable System) Submarine communications cables in the Atlantic Ocean Submarine communications cables in the Indian Ocean Internet in Africa 2009 establishments in Africa Submarine communications cables in the Arabian Sea Submarine communications cables in the Red Sea Telecommunications in India 2009 establishments in Asia 2009 establishments in Maharashtra

Technology and cable structure

Funding

Landing points

See also

References