Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
in order to accommodate escalating demand. It
seems apparent that that the increased international
capacity has renewed competition is beginning to
drive prices downwards.
There are a number of other cables in the
pipeline which aim to have a presence in South
Africa during the coming years. These are de-
picted in the image to the right. The East African
Submarine System (EASSY) cable is due to be
launched in mid 2010 with the West African
Cable System (WACS) set to be active the fol-
lowing year. This should radically reduce Africa's
dependence on satellite connectivity.
In a study conducted by Balancingact-Africa
(Southwood, 2006), it was revealed that some 29
of 55 African countries obtain 80% of their total
international Internet bandwidth by satellite, an in-
herently more expensive medium than submarine
fibre optic cable. Source: manypossibilities (2008)
Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) has been pro-
posed as a solution to give other players in the
market direct access to households and businesses.
The creation of the fixed-line telephone network
was established over a number of decades, using
tax payers' money, and this is neither easily nor
cheaply replicated by competitors. Some com-
mentators therefore see this is a strategic national
asset which should not be held in private hands
under these circumstances. During its period of
exclusivity, Telkom was given the exclusive right
to provide telecommunications infrastructure con-
necting commercial and private establishments in
the country. This meant that no two parties could
establish a connection between themselves, even
if a company wished to connect two regional of-
fices together. This also had the unfortunate effect
of cellular operators, Internet Service Providers,
and the like needing to use the incumbent to
connect their inter-company nodes if not located
within the same premises. These artificially raised
telecommunications costs and kept internet pen-
etration to modest levels (as highlighted earlier
in the chapter).
Local loop unbundling would allow the sec-
ond network operator (Neotel) and other pivotal
players the opportunity to provide direct telecom-
munications services to consumers and businesses
without 'piggy backing' on the Telkom network.
Figure 6. Forthcoming cables connecting Africa to the global Internet backbone
Search WWH ::
Custom Search