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Cape Town - The SA government will officially lead an initiative to deploy broadband capacity and create a "sustainable competitive international bandwidth market in South Africa".
According to a statement released on Tuesday, the African West Coast Cable (AWCC) - being built by a consortium led by SA state-owned broadband infrastructure company Infraco - is expected to enter service by mid-2010, in time to meet the bandwidth requirements for the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
This announcement follows a meeting between the presidency, minister of public enterprises, Alec Erwin and minister of communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri.
It also follows much debate about legalities, access and tension between Infraco and Matsepe-Casaburri's Sentech initiative.
According to a statement released on Tuesday by the government communication and information service: "The decision is in line with the president's statement in this year's state of the nation address to complete the licensing and the operationalisation of Infraco as well as the completion of the process to launch undersea cables in partnership with other governments on the continent and the private sector."
Broadband Infraco was created by government as a new state-owned enterprise to execute interventions that deliver affordable broadband to South Africans on an open access basis.
The AWCC model is such that Infraco will own 26% of the cable whilst the remaining 74% will be owned by a broad base of private sector participants, including incumbent communications operators.
The AWCC project is already well advanced, and a memorandum of understanding has been agreed with prospective private sector participants. Infraco will announce a selected supplier and enter formal contract negotiations shortly.
The AWCC is a 3 840 gigabit super-cable which will stretch from the Western Cape to the United Kingdom with capacity terminating in London.
It will have branching units to at least 10 countries along the West Coast of Africa at a design length of 13 000 km.
The cable will also support South Africa's science super-projects such as the Square Kilometer Array Telescope for which the country is currently competing against Australia. The AWCC will proceed with immediate effect.
- Fin24.com