R6bn Ace submarine cable now live

The system now connects 13 countries, with a further seven, including South Africa, on the cards for a second phase of construction.

Added by Duncan McLeod on 20 December 2012.
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A France Telecom-Orange cable-laying ship, the René Descartes

The first phase of the US$700m (about R6bn) Africa Coast to Europe (Ace) submarine telecommunications cable has gone live, with the section between France and São Tomé and Príncipe now carrying data traffic.

The project is being led by French telecoms giant France Telecom-Orange. The second phase of the cable will see it being extended south to South Africa, offering extra capacity to existing international networks already deployed in the region.

The Ace cable follows roughly the same route as the West African Cable System. Wacs, with a design capacity of 5,1Tbit/s, was taken live this year.

Already, the Ace cable connects 13 countries along its route. Two landlocked countries, Mali and Niger, will also be connected through extensions to the terrestrial network. Nigeria will be connected to the cable in 2013.

The Ace cable route (map supplied by France Telecom-Orange)

Seven of the countries now connected — The Gambia, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Mauritania, São Tomé and Príncipe and Sierra Leone — have a direct connection to a submarine telecoms cable for the first time. “By using this new network, the telecoms operators in these countries will now be able to develop innovative broadband services that are essential to their economic and social development,” France Telecom-Orange says in a statement.

The first phase of the Ace cable runs for of 12 000km. When it is extended to South Africa, it will be 17 000km in length. In the second phase, a further seven countries will get landing stations.

Like Wacs, Ace has a design capacity of 5,1Tbit/s and uses 40Gbit/s dense wavelength-division multiplexing technology.  — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004840057861 Joe Black

    Cool. Odds of this lowering our internet prices once it hooks up to SA? I fear Telkom will still kill us with their ADSL access and line rental charges no matter how cheap the international data cost becomes :/

  • http://www.facebook.com/comurray Colin Murray

    Telkom = GREED, greed and more greed.

  • Greg Mahlknecht

    I concur. And anyone who pipes up with the BS urban legend excuse that they’re obligated by law to maximize profit, gets a kick in the neck.

  • Karel Venter

    A lot of criticism can be lobbed against Telkom and rightfully so maybe. But has anyone in the ICT sector tried to deal with Orange Telecoms in SA lately? a Nightmare, they are French and because they are French, they refuse to play well with others. We experienced them as being extremely narrow minded.

  • Abdul Ravoof

    Great news…If there is competition then there will be quality of service..Now WACS has the competition from this cable..Goodluck

  • http://www.freeinvestmentadvice.org free investment advice

    At the risk of a kick in the neck, Greg, could you educate me as to why Telkom shouldn’t be maximising profit for shareholders?

  • Greg Mahlknecht

    Telkom shouldn’t be trying to maximize short-term profits by bleeding their diminishing customer base dry. They should be building infrastructure aggressively, driving their prices down and trying to sign up as many customers as possible. The telecoms business is one that the operator builds the network at risk, then reaps the benefits over many years. Telkom still has a bit of a war-chest and has had MANY years to do this without any competition at all. Now, however, their war-chest is getting pretty low and FTTH projects are nearing completion. This might be their last chance to drive their network to new customers uncontested, and this will require posting a few big losses for the long-term benefit of the company.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004840057861 Joe Black

    By way of a swift kick in the neck it is clear to see where their M.O. is taking them – Straight down the drain on the way to becoming completely obsolete. If I was a shareholder then I would care about this. A lot. Anyway… I’d care even more than the Telkom way with a little help from the gov has made Telkom shares take a nose dive. They need to start providing attractive products. They can’t assume that the SA consumers will just keep on taking whatever bone they feel like throwing to them.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-Jaco-Slabbert/100000253739401 Paul-Jaco Slabbert

    Yeah why not they put infrastructure in place for us they should ask whatever they want this should provide chance for competition to add infrastructure if they want…. to the consumer who wants it cheaper well use the library and the postal service then

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