Johannesburg - While a new undersea fibre-optic cable will help to push up South Africa's bandwidth capacity 120 times to around 10 terabits per second by 2011, consumers will only benefit if government and local operators can deliver the bandwidth to them efficiently.
On Wednesday, a number of firms signed an agreement for the implementation of the West Africa Cable System (Wacs). This is the sixth confirmed undersea fibre-optic cable set to serve west, east and southern Africa.
But while it will make bandwidth available, it is the responsibility of operators and governments to deliver the increased capacity to consumers.
Local industry players, however, are confident that the South African government and local operators will shape up.
"I can understand the concerns people may have, but I don't think there will be any problems," said the founder of the internet and computer news website My Broadband, Rudolf Muller.
According to Frost & Sullivan ICT analyst Lindsey McDonald, getting the broadband to consumers will depend on the infrastructure available.
"You only really see the full potential and full connectivity of these cables if the national backbone infrastructure is in place," said McDonald. "In South Africa we're definitely luckier than other African countries."
Many local firms are also adding to the infrastructure to support the new broadband capacity.
"Previously, Telkom was solely responsible for the distribution of bandwidth from the Sat3 cable. This exclusivity was then exploited.
Nice price for consumers
"But as more and more operators get involved in providing broadband to the public, that exclusivity and exploitation will be eradicated," Muller said.
MTN, Neotel and Vodacom are already working on putting infrastructure in place to support the new broadband capacity. Work on the MTN/Neotel/Vodacom national long-haul fibre network is expected to start in April, with the first leg connecting Johannesburg and Durban.
"A lot of guys are getting involved and pumping money into building and developing infrastructure," said Muller.
The lifespan of the Sat3 cable will be coming to an end in 2015/2016 and the Wacs is set to take its place.
Wacs, a $600m submarine fibre-optic cable, will link countries in southern Africa, western Africa and Europe, with at least 3.84 terabits per second of international bandwidth.
The telecommunications companies that have signed the Wacs agreement include Angola Telecom, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, MTN, Portugal Telecom, Sotelco, Tata Communications, Telecom Namibia, Telkom SA, Togo Telecom and Vodacom.
"Wacs will provide Africa with faster and better connectivity to Europe and the world at far cheaper rates - savings which will be passed on to consumers," said Telkom in a statement.
"There will obviously be a base price for bandwidth, but the increased competition will definitely affect prices. It happened worldwide and will happen here," said Muller.
- Fin24.com