Spending on submarine and terrestrial fibre-optic cable infrastructure projects in Africa is expected to reach some USD 6 billion over the next two years, as countries scramble to boost international connectivity.
In its latest report, market researcher BMI-TechKnowledge said that the effective high-speed internet services required for critical business, government and consumer applications have remained either unavailable or very expensive in Africa.
Governments’ awareness of this situation, and the perceived commercial attractiveness of the opportunity to close this gap, has given rise to the current frenetic activity for construction of submarine fibre cables on the continent. There are at least ten submarine fibre cables and a significant number of supporting terrestrial cables that are either planned or under construction in Africa, with South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and, to a lesser extent, Tanzania, driving the demand for international connectivity, said BMI-T research analyst Maxwell Chanakira. Investment in Africa’s ICT infrastructure has improved significantly over the past decade.
However, marked deficiencies persist in the backbone networks across the continent. Although countries on the African west and southern coasts have access to fibre connectivity through the SAT-3 undersea cable, an estimated 80 percent of Africa’s international voice and data traffic is carried via satellite, said Chanakira.
Following the glut of international submarine fibre-optic bandwidth that emerged around the turn of the century, the industry has shown signs of increased activity in the past few years. Since December 2006, several cable projects have been planned. From the US, two cables are being constructed to China, one to Australia and a further two to the Caribbean. Multiple cables are in various stages of development between East Africa and India.
When these cables have been completed, there will be a vast amount of excess capacity, added Chanakira. BMI-TechKnowledge said demand from Africa would increase to just 300 Gbps by 2015, and a maximum of 2 000 Gbps by 2019. This would represent a significant capacity glut in excess of 9 Tbps in five years time, and would remain a glut of 8 Tbps ten years from now.
The total design capacity of all planned cables is 10 Tbps – up from the baseline of less than 400 Gbps currently.
