West Africa Cable System gets underway

Alcatel-Lucent is to provide a 14,000km submarine fibre optic system linking Africa and Europe

Work on a new submarine cable network that will provide the first direct connection between southern Africa and Europe is under way following the signing of a construction and maintenance agreement and supply contract.

The West Africa Cable System (WACS) has been set up by a consortium of multinational telcos, and will see networking firm Alcatel-Lucent provide a 14,000km submarine fibre optic cable system that will link countries in southern Africa, western Africa and Europe with at least 3.84Tbit/s of international bandwidth. The entire installation is expected to cost about $600m (£403m) and should be ready for service by 2011.

"Access to advanced technologies is key in some areas of the world that do not yet benefit from internet opportunities," said Georges Krebs, chief operating officer of submarine network activity at Alcatel-Lucent.

"By meeting the requirements of communications infrastructures in terms of flexibility and scalability, we help our customers to enhance their capacity and deliver a more seamless and reliable service so that end users can enjoy the best experience possible."

It is hoped that the project will provide Africa with faster and more robust connectivity to Europe and the rest of the world at far cheaper rates, helping to drive down the prohibitively expensive cost of broadband in these countries, as well as support IP-based services such as video applications for education and healthcare.

The consortium includes Angola Telecom, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, MTN, Telecom Namibia, Portugal Telecom, Sotelco, Tata Communications, Telkom SA, Togo Telecom and Vodacom.

The system will connect South Africa to the UK with landings in Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Cape Verde, the Canary Islands and Portugal.

"WACS has brought together a multitude of nations and some of the world's most influential telecoms players in a joint effort to use state-of-the-art technology in linking more people more efficiently than ever before," said Kobus Stoeder, chairman of the consortium's management committee.

"WACS will enable these countries to improve communications and internet services that are crucial for social and economic development. Alcatel-Lucent combines field-proven experience, reliability and the customer focus we need for such an exciting new project."

Under the contract Alcatel-Lucent will install a minimum of three fibre pair cable systems linking southern Africa to Portugal, with landings in several intermediate countries and an extension to the UK in London.