Pan-African telecoms enabler Seacom has announced plans to significantly upgrade network bandwidth in 2017 to cater for the growth of big data, the cloud and video.

In a statement, the company confirmed it will invest in shifting all key elements of the network to 100G technology, which it says increases capacity throughput while reducing cost.

"Initially, Seacom is lighting 500Gbps in new capacity on the new backbone platform from Africa to Europe that came online in January 2017. Thanks to the new technology, additional upgrades can be done as needed with less than 30 days' lead-time," reads the statement.

Seacom CEO Byron Clatterbuck said, "Seacom is the largest IP Transit provider on the African continent, and has led the process of getting all the key content players into Africa. There will be continued growth from these "Over-The-Top-Players" and Seacom is preparing for scale that will serve their future growth."

The company has also stated its intention to expand its coverage into new regions and countries. During 2016, it launched its first IP point of presence (PoP) in Kigali, Rwanda, and recently added a PoP in Gaborone, Botswana.

Growing solutions portfolio

Seacom says it will enhance and grow its solutions portfolio for enterprise and operator customers, something it describes as a strategic priority.

This year the company plans to introduce new managed services products and will invest in SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network), NFV (network function virtualisation) and SDN (software-defined networks).

"These technologies will allow Seacom more flexibility as it grows, reduce infrastructure costs and enable Seacom to roll out robust cloud computing offerings for enterprise customers," the company explains.

In April Seacom experienced an outage affecting the connection between Africa and Europe, forcing the company to redirect transmission over WACS (West African Cable System) links in the west coast of Africa, as well as its Asia gateways.