Cable operator Seacom has told South African press that it has lit up a one terabyte fibre line connecting Johannesburg and Cape Town.
The new development comes as Seacom is said to be lighting up the fibre assets of FibreCo, a company it acquired in November last year. FibreCo owns and operates a national open access dark fibre network, providing infrastructure, connectivity and services across South Africa.
Seacom previously only had capacity from Durban up to Johannesburg. Following the lighting up of the Johannesburg to Cape Town facility, the next destination for Seacom is expected to be East London.
The fibre push is said to be part of Seacom’s business strategy of relying less on its subsea cable business, a sector where competition is growing, potentially coming from Google (with Equiano, the first phase of which is to be completed in 2021, connecting Africa with Europe), and Facebook (with Simba, which, if it goes ahead, will circle the continent), among others.
In any case, there is a room for growth in the African market; even in South Africa fibre penetration is still much lower than many developed markets.
Seacom has over 60 points of presence across South Africa, including major data centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. The company launched Africa’s first broadband submarine cable system along the continent’s eastern and southern coasts in 2009. Today it owns Africa’s most extensive ICT data infrastructure and partners African businesses, network carriers and service providers.
