IMPLEMENTATION OF UHURUNET SUBMARINE CABLE | NEPAD

What's New

IMPLEMENTATION OF UHURUNET SUBMARINE CABLE | 9 July 2010 |

A DREAM COME TRUE FOR NEPAD

By Gilles Eric FOADEY

In Paris on the 5^th of June 2010 in the presence of representatives of various African Governments, the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA) and twenty (20) Telephone Companies supported by their Countries endorsed Uhurunet, the submarine segment of the NEPAD ICT Broadband Infrastructure Network.

Baharicom Development Company, developer of the Uhurunet submarine cable system, was joined by France Telecom and 18 other companies to sign the Construction and Management Agreement for the ACE /Uhurunet cable system.

The Uhurunet submarine cable system in its planned configuration will be 17,000 km-long fiber optic cable that will stretch from France to South Africa and will be operational in the first half of 2012. It will connect 23 countries, either directly for coastal countries or indirectly through terrestrial links for landlocked countries Mali and Niger.

Speaking at the official ceremony, the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency CEO, Dr. Ibrahim Assane MAYAKI stated that” Uhurunet is essential to the African Union’s plan to bring broadband connectivity to all African countries, their governments and businesses, schools and universities, hospitals and communities’’ and therefore” NEPAD is happy to be one of the sponsors of Uhurunet’’.

Under the sponsorship of NEPAD, Baharicom will operate as a carrier’s carrier providing a full spectrum of Internet, voice and data services to telecommunication carriers, Internet Service Providers and others. Baharicom will have landing stations in Africa’s two largest markets, South Africa and Nigeria, as well as in Ghana, Tenerife, Angola, and Namibia. It will have access to all the landing points in the ACE/Uhurunet system.

As the single largest investor in the ACE Consortium, Uhurunet will be the largest holder of capacity on ACE/Uhurunet cable. The ACE/Uhurunet system will pioneer the new 40 Gbps Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technologies, which are currently being tested for deployment as part of the most advanced submarine cables. With an overall potential capacity of 5.12 Tbps, the systems will accommodates tomorrow's ultra-broadband networks.

The ACE/Uhurunet project represents an overall investment of around USD 700 million for the consortium. Baharicom will invest 240 million USD in the project. Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks has been awarded the supply contract of the system, with Tyco as a subcontractor.

This achievement is a dream comes true for NEPAD and is the result of the tireless efforts of the ICT Broadband Infrastructure team.

In 2012 the Uhurunet submarine cable will be completed and the African citizens will use this bridge to cross into the global information society and knowledge economy.

What's New

IMPLEMENTATION OF UHURUNET SUBMARINE CABLE | 9 July 2010 |

Latest News Headlines

Newsletter Subscription

Featured Videos