MTN Group, PCCW Global, Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Telecom Egypt (TE) and Telkom South Africa have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the intention of constructing the new "Africa-1" submarine cable system. This consortium-funded system will connect Africa with the Middle East and South Central Asia and provide onward connectivity to Europe.

In a statement released to the media the companies are said to "represent a wealth of experience and expertise in deploying major cable systems" ... "and they are expected to be joined in the consortium by other carriers seeking to contribute to and to share in Africa-1's success. The consortium members have access to landings at all major cable systems in the Middle East, which will facilitate efficient and effective connectivity between Africa-1 and the rest of the world."

According to the consortium Africa-1 will have at least 3-fiber pair core that extends more than 12,000 km along Africa's East Coast towards Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, with up to an additional 5,000 km for branches.

The system will leverage the latest state-of-the-art 100G technology and will be initially equipped to accommodate several terabits of capacity from day one.

"Along with comprehensive interconnection with other cable systems and full Open Access at all cable landing points, Africa-1 will be technically and commercially be designed to be attractive, delivering easy accessibility and a unique low-latency direct express route," the statement reads.

The construction and maintenance agreement is expected to be signed by June 2016, with a target ready for service timeframe of the third quarter of 2017.

Telco response

Tamer Gadallah, Chief Executive Officer of Telecom Egypt, is confident of Africa-1's differential quality and said, "The addressable market of African wholesale bandwidth customers is more promising than in many other regions. The weakness of the continent's international bandwidth is due to the lack of new systems coming into Africa to enhance the competitiveness of the African market. Africa-1 system has a superior cost base and a state-of-the-art design that will enable it to be the most competitive system coming to serve this diversified market."

John Unterhorst, Group Executive responsible for Global Carrier Services and Group Network/IP Projects (MTN Group), hailed Africa-1 as a high capacity consortium initiative on the Eastern African seaboard that will complement existing cables now nearing their mid-life. "Africa-1 will ensure future resiliency and capacity requirements for the explosive digital broadband future, so vital for Africa's economic and social development," he said.

Managing Executive of Network Engineering & Build, Telkom SA Casper Kondo-Chihaka, said, "In addition to complementing our existing high-bandwidth cable systems in the region, Africa-1 will provide more diversity for the large volume broadband traffic from South Africa to the rest of the world. This cable will provide the means to fulfill our role as Champions of the National Broadband access and act as catalyst to stimulate further penetration of Internet connectivity for the entire country."