SEACOM launched Africa's first broadband submarine cable system along the continent's Southern coasts in 2009. SEACOM is privately owned and operated.

Technology and cable structure

Fibre-optic pairs are provided from Mtunzini to France to a point of presence (PoP) in

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

, as well as from Tanzania to India into a PoP in

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

. SEACOM has also built an on-net European network, managed and operated by themselves, to deliver

transport layer In computer networking, the transport layer is a conceptual division of methods in the layered architecture of protocols in the network stack in the Internet protocol suite and the OSI model. The protocols of this layer provide end-to-end c ...

internet protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. IP ...

(IP), and

multiprotocol label switching Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on labels rather than network addresses. Whereas network addresses identify endpoints, the labels iden ...

(MPLS) services to the following cities in Europe: * Amsterdam, Netherlands * Frankfurt, Germany * London, United Kingdom * Marseille, France * Slough, United Kingdom Through third-party networks in Europe, SEACOM also delivers these services to other locations in Europe not covered in the list of cities above. The SEACOM cable is deployed with a mixture of double armour cable, single armour cable, special protection cable (with a metallic wrap below the insulator, rather than steel wires), and lightweight cable without armour, used in deep waters. Shallower water cable typically has more protective armour than offshore, deeper cable. The cable is a loose tube design that determines the amount and relative location along the transmission path of each type of fibre. Multiple fibre types are used in the cable: dispersion-shifted and non-zero dispersion-shifted. The repeaters are

optical amplifier An optical amplifier is a device that amplifies an optical signal directly, without the need to first convert it to an electrical signal. An optical amplifier may be thought of as a laser without an optical cavity, or one in which feedback fro ...

repeater In telecommunications, a repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it. Repeaters are used to extend transmissions so that the signal can cover longer distances or be received on the other side of an obstruction. Some ...

s, using

erbium Erbium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Er and atomic number 68. A silvery-white solid metal when artificially isolated, natural erbium is always found in chemical combination with other elements. It is a lanthanide, a rare- ...

-doped

amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It is a two-port electronic circuit that uses electric power from a power su ...

s. There are over 150 repeaters in the SEACOM system. They are spaced along the cable many tens of kilometres apart with the distance between repeaters varying depending on the segment in the system. Repeater spacing is determined by a variety of factors, including the transmission capacity of the fibres in the cable and the distance between

cable landing point A cable landing point is the location where a Submarine cable, submarine or other underwater cable makes landfall. The term is most often used for the landfall points of submarine communications cable, submarine telecommunications cables and subm ...

s. On 23 July 2009, the cable began operations, providing the eastern and southern African countries of Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa with high-speed Internet connectivity to Europe and Asia. The cable was officially switched on in simultaneous events held across the region, in

Mombasa Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital status in 1907. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...

, Kenya, and

Dar es Salaam Dar es Salaam (, ; from ) is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of the Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over 7 million people, Dar es Salaam is the largest city in East Africa by population and the ...

, Tanzania. On 4 August 2020, SEACOM announced that it would more than double the capacity on its fibre-optic network by the end of August 2020. The continent's first broadband submarine cable system operator will add 1.7 Tbit/s to its network, bringing its total capacity to 3.2 Tbit/s along Africa's eastern and Southern coasts.

Funding

SEACOM is privately funded, and approximately 75 percent Southeastern and South African-owned. Initial private investment in the SEACOM project was US$375 million: $75 million from the developers, $150 million from private South African investors, and $75 million as a commercial loan from

Nedbank Nedbank Group is a financial services group in South Africa offering wholesale and retail banking services as well as insurance, asset management, and wealth management. Nedbank Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nedbank Group. Headquarter ...

(South Africa). The remaining $75 million was provided by Industrial Promotion Services (IPS), which is the industrial and infrastructure arm of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development. The IPS investment was funded by $15 million in equity, and a total of $60.4 million in debt from the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund and the FMO (Netherlands). Current ownership structure is as follows: 30 percent IPS, 30 percent Remgro, 15 percent

Sanlam Sanlam Limited is a South African financial services group headquartered in Bellville, Western Cape, South Africa. Sanlam is one of the largest insurance companies in Africa. It is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Namibian Stock ...

, 15 percent Convergence Partners, and 10 percent by Brian Herlihy. The cable is variously described as a $600 and a $650 million project, and has seen a number of upgrades to landing station infrastructure, national backhaul and increases to carrying capacity, with an increase to 2.6 terabits per second (Tbit/s) in May 2012, and then to 12 Tbit/s in 2014.

Landing points

The

s are: *

, France *

Djibouti Djibouti, officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the east. The country has an area ...

, Kenya *

Dar Es Salaam Dar es Salaam (, ; from ) is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of the Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over 7 million people, Dar es Salaam is the largest city in East Africa by population and the ...

, Tanzania *

Maputo Maputo () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Mozambique. Located near the southern end of the country, it is within of the borders with Eswatini and South Africa. The city has a population of 1,088,449 (as of 2017) distributed ov ...

, Mozambique * Mtunzini, South Africa *

, India SEACOM Partner Network landing points include: * Yzerfontein, South Africa * Lagos, Nigeria * Accra, Ghana * Fujairah, UAE

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:SEACOM (African Submarine Cable System) Submarine communications cables in the Atlantic Ocean Submarine communications cables in the Indian Ocean Internet in Africa 2009 establishments in Africa Submarine communications cables in the Arabian Sea Submarine communications cables in the Red Sea Telecommunications in India 2009 establishments in Asia 2009 establishments in Maharashtra

Technology and cable structure

Funding

Landing points

See also

References