The Eassy cable has connection points along
the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.
James Wekesa is WIOCC’s chief commercial
officer. (Images: WIOCC blog)
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• James Wekesa
WIOCC
Chief Commercial Officer
+254 20 374 6594/5
james.wekesa@wiocc.net
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Bongani Nkosi
Construction of
The West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC), the leading partner in the project, has announced that the installation of the Eassy cable was completed on 19 April along the coast of
This marked the conclusion of the installation phase of the project, which began in
The next step is to test Eassy before introducing it to the market in July, said WIOCC’s CEO Chris Wood in a statement.
“Now that this critical stage of the project has been completed successfully and ahead of time, we will start system testing almost immediately. Once this is finalised, we are looking forward to connecting our first customers to the network from July 2010.”
Eassy now runs along the Indian Ocean floor to the Red Sea, from the coast of Mtunzini in
Rivalling Seacom
The 10 000km-long high-capacity cable will significantly boost broadband connectivity and the general telecommunications industry in 21 sub-Saharan countries, connecting those states with each other and elsewhere around the globe.
Eassy’s landing stations in Mtunzini,
Eassy will have the capacity to transmit 1.4 Terabytes (Tb) per second, compared to the 600m-long Seacom, which offers bandwidth at the speed of 1.28Tb per second.
Countries in East, Central and
“… Eassy offers carriers in Africa affordable, high-speed connectivity into other parts of the continent, and direct access to key internet exchange points in Europe and
“For international carriers, it offers a reliable, high-capacity route into parts of
Connecting East Africa to Europe
Eassy will be the first undersea cable system to directly connect Africa’s east coast nations to
“… Other east coast systems use longer routes via the Middle East or
“Eassy will … minimise the time taken for traffic from Africa to reach the key internet peering points in Europe and
The majority of international traffic is internet-based, and most of Africa’s internet traffic is destined for Europe and the
Reaching out to landlocked countries
Nine landlocked African countries –
“At WIOCC we are also working with our shareholders to deliver high-speed, fibre-optic connectivity not just to the Eassy landing stations, but deep into the interior of
A major African stake
As the largest shareholder with a 29% stake, WIOCC was set up specifically to drive investment in the Eassy cable system. The consortium’s headquarters are in
It was initially owned by 12 African telecommunications companies, until
The two joined Botswana Telecommunications Corporation, Dalkom
All WIOCC’s sub-Saharan
Numerous other public and private companies have invested in Eassy.
African telecom operators own more than 92% of the Eassy project, with the remaining shares taken up by international ventures, such as France Telecom,