News on the New internet cable....

F

FU*SPOOF

New member
Ola... So who knows STUFF. Fastest line we can get. Price cuts. Cap no cap so on and so on and so on.... Anything really
 
No one knows this stuff as it hasn't landed yet and as a result companies haven't had a chance to review costs and therefore review prices.
 
Well, that's not exactly true .... there was an article on Mybb about how certain companies are already privy to new pricing structures and what not.
 
From: MYBB

Tests have begun on the undersea telecoms cable Seacom with its switch-on only 29 days away

The cable has been brought ashore at Mtunzini near Durban as the $600m project stays on schedule.

Tests under way will ensure all the connections in the 17000km cable are fully operational and optimum traffic flow is achieved before its commercial launch on June 27.

The cable links India to SA and runs up Africa’s east coast to the Middle East and Europe. It promises to end the dearth of bandwidth that has kept prices high and data transmissions down for African countries.

“It’s a huge impact for SA, but it’s a much bigger impact for east Africa,” said CEO Brian Herlihy yesterday. “Communities in Africa are all depending on information and communications technology infrastructure as a catalyst for development.”

Herlihy said originally its bandwidth would be 90% cheaper than existing supplies. But price cuts as operators prepared for the Seacom threat will make its savings closer to 40%-50% now.

The cost to consumers will also depend on the profit margin operators buying Seacom bandwidth, including Vodacom and Internet Solutions, want.

Seacom expects a return on its investment in five years — conservative if consumers quickly demand more bandwidth to enjoy new applications such as video conferencing and movie downloads. Africa’s only other submarine cable runs up the west coast, but its owners, including Telkom, have charged high fees.

Seacom bandwidth would be sold at far lower prices, said Herlihy. With the system substantially completed and testing under way, it was close to delivering on its commitment and becoming the first cable to provide eastern and southern African retail carriers with open access to inexpensive bandwidth, he said yesterday.

Neotel would run the landing station in SA and deliver capacity nationwide. Landlocked countries would benefit from Seacom’s “cheap and plentiful” bandwidth, Herlihy said. It was working to ensure cross-country networks were built to carry its capacity inland. Those backhaul cables were being laid to Johannesburg, Kampala, Kigali and Nairobi.

Heavy investment by SA’s cellular networks in a new national backbone were probably triggered by Seacom’s arrival as their networks needed upgrading to benefit from the huge international capacity about to arrive.

While several other undersea cables are being planned, not all may materialise due to the enormous costs involved. Some government-led projects risk being sunk by the complexity of trying to include many governments in the initiatives.

Seacom was initiated by US-based Herakles Telecom. It diluted its own stake down to 23,75%, to bring in outside funding and comply with SA’s demand for any cable landing in the country to be majority African owned.

Local investors are Venfin with 25%, Shanduka Group with 12,5% and Convergence Partners, with 12,5%.
Click to expand...
 
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knowing telkom, the 50% off will be on the phone line rental and not the ADSL Line or bandwidth LOOOOOOOOOOOL
 
You definatly not gonna see price cuts straight away price cuts only gonna be like 1-2 years down the line, yes there will be more bandwidth but people that are investing in the cable are not gonna put their prices down straight away. Say you just bought a shop and u have a specialty dish, you would not sell it for cheap unless you know 100% that it is working.
 
A bit more news:
Source

The threat of Somalian pirates has resulted in a delay in the Seacom undersea cable's switch on date.

The cable -- which was expected to go live on June 27 this year -- now has an official launch date of July 8.

The Mail & Guardian understands that the original date was pushed out by just more than a week to build in some slack for the project, which is currently undergoing testing.

Seacom CEO Brian Herlihy said that due to the threat of piracy, the contractor -- who was laying the cable in the ocean bed -- requested that Seacom remove the tracking system from their website that showed the ship's current location.

"We had a board agenda item called pirates," he said.

However he insisted that the cable down the east coast of Africa was now complete and that Seacom was just waiting for the link between India and Africa to be completed.

"We are still on target for June 27," said Herlihy.

He said there has been a mad scramble by operators and governments in Africa as the activation date draws nearer, with most laying out national fibre networks to take advantage of the cheap international bandwidth the cable will deliver.

Herlihy said that he expects bandwidth prices in South Africa to fall by between 40% and 50%.

He said that South African consumers should see a price war, until the market settles.

Herlihy was speaking from the Mtunzini landing station in KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday afternoon, which is already complete.

Neotel already has access to the station through the transtel communications network on the nearby railroads, while Dark Fibre Africa and Neotel are building links between Durban and Johannesburg.

The project will be the first undersea cable to connect to East Africa from the rest of the world through links to India, the United Kingdom and France.

Besides South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya and Tanzania, the cable will also link to Madagascar, Ethopia and Egypt.

The project is 76,25% African-owned, with South Africa's Shanduka Group (12,5%), Venfin Limited (25%), Convergence Partners (12,5%) and Kenya's Industrial Promotion Services (26,25%) all on board. The remaining 23,75% is owned by Herakles Telecom, a New-York-based international development group.

Herlihy says a simple calculation shows that South Africa needs about 50 gigabits of international capacity to service the one million broadband subscribers in the country, but only has 10 gigabits.

"International capacity has been choking the data market in Africa for years now," says Herlihy.

Initially Seacom will deliver 80 gigabits of international capacity through its cable but can meet more demand easily because the cable has a potential capacity of 1,28 terabits (1 280 gigabits). Herlihy says Seacom managed to sell two-thirds of the initial capacity of 80 gigabits.
Click to expand...
 
Well, this is not unexpected. We have waited this long. What is another month?
Besides, we're not getting our hopes up, are we?
 
I can see major uproar from South Africans if Telkom does indeed remain greedy and just enlarge their profit margin. I try to remain positive, but I was positive that shit wouldn't enter presidency and Zuma did, so that failed.
 
I don't think Telkom would change their ways unless the local telecoms scene were to be well and truely shaken up by another operator. Neotel have been a disappoointment thus far.
 
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