Fibre Optics: Africa on Information Superhighway
A GNA Feature by Samuel Dowuona
Accra, Sept.15, Ghanadot/GNA - So
much has been said about fibre optics over the last two
years, particularly submarine fibre optics communications
technology coming to Ghana.
The hype of the fibre optics talk was particularly fuelled
by the sale of 70 per cent of the Enlarged Ghana Telecom to
Vodafone at a “paltry” $900 million.
The Enlarged GT included the fixed line operations, the
mobile phone operations (Onetouch), the call centre (Exzeed),
the National Fibre Optics Backbone and the SAT-3 Submarine
Fibre Optics landing station.
In simple terms, fibre optics refers to the technology that
enables the transmission of information (as light impulses)
along a glass-like or plastic-like wire other than the
conventional copper wire.
Fibre optic wire carries much more information at a faster
speed than conventional copper wire and is far less subject
to breaks in communications. It is widely used by telephone
companies, around the world, for long-distance lines.
Because fibre optics transmits larger volumes of information
(data and voice) at a higher speed, it makes internet and
telecommunications more affordable than satellite does.
In fact, the coming of fibre optics has compelled satellite
technology companies to slash down their prices by more than
50 per cent, said Karl Keppke, Regional Sales Director for
O3b Networks, a satellite company with operations in Africa.
Mr Keppke told this writer, at the just ended Telecom World
Africa Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, that he was
confident that there would continue to be a fair mix of
satellite and fibre optics communication technologies on the
African Continent.
The benefits fibre optics promises for Africa are obvious;
speed and affordability of electronic communication; this
means internet access and data transmission will be cheaper
and voice communication could be free.
These are necessary to enable Africa to catch up with the
rest of the world at a faster rate.
Another fall out advantage of fibre optics, particularly for
those who are concerned about the spread of telecom masts in
residential areas across Ghana, is that fibre optics does
not need masts and antennae to operate. Satellite technology
uses masts but fibre optics is underground technology.
Currently, Africa is virtually inundated in the sea of
submarine fibre optic cables; there are at least eight
undersea fibre optic cables, with an aggregate of 10.94
terabytes capacity, landing in almost all the coastal
countries of Africa; some of the cables also provide
connectivity to several inland countries.
The undersea cables available to Africa right now are SAT-3,
120 gigabytes; Main-one, 1.92 terabytes; Glo-one, 640
gigabytes; East African Submarine Cable System (EASSY), 1.3
terabytes; South Asia Telecom Cable (SEACOM), 1.2 terabytes;
The Eastern African Marine Systems (TEAMS), 640 gigabytes;
and the largest of them all, West Africa Cable System (WACS),
5.12 terabytes.
On the West Coast of Africa, SAT-3 (14,000km), WACS
(14,000km) and Main one (14,000 km) connects Europe to South
Africa, stretching from Portugal, with several landing
stations along the western coast of Africa, including Ghana,
down to the south.
Glo1 (9,500km), owned by Nigerian-based Globacom, connects
United Kingdom to Nigeria, landing in Spain, Portugal,
Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal and Ghana.
Ghana is a beneficiary of at least four submarine cables;
SAT-3, which is currently 50 per cent live; Glo1, expected
to go live later this year; Main-one due in May 2010 and
WACS due 2011.
All things being equal, in less than five years, the whole
of Africa should be hooked unto fibre optics technology.
According to Mr Alhassan Umar, Executive Director of
Information Technology Enable Service (ITES) Secretariat,
with such a huge fibre optic capacity, Ghana stands to
benefit in the area of business processes outsourcing (BPO).
He explained that the submarine fibre optics landing
stations would provide a huge backup of redundant fibre
optics capacity that would trigger investor confidence in
the ability of the country’s BPO companies to provide
reliable, high speed and affordable communications service
to their clients around the world.
On the eastern coast of Africa there is EASSY Way, 10,000km
long, which connects South Africa to Sudan, with several
landing stations along the eastern coast. Twenty other
countries in south-eastern and north-eastern Africa are also
connected to EASSY.
SEACOM (15,000km) is also on the east, connecting France to
India, with at least seven landing stations in Africa; from
South Africa through the eastern coast to Egypt in the
north.
TEAMS is 4,500km long and links Kenya with the United Arab
Emirates, with possible landing stations in Rwanda, Southern
Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi.
Affordable and high speed transmission of information,
reduction in spread of telecom masts and confidence booster
in Africa as a BPO hub, are all very good benefits of fibre
optics for Africa, but telecom industry investors, operators
and regulators think there is more to this fibre optics
discussion than the expected benefits.
At the just ended Telecom World Africa 2009 conference in
Cape Town South Africa, industry stakeholders expressed
concern over whether the expected level of demand for fibre
optics technology in Africa, is worth the billions of
dollars being invested to develop the technology.
The supply side has been well catered for, but there is a
dilemma as to whether the level of demand would sustain the
supply; the danger of a huge chunk of Africa’s fibre optic
capacity remaining redundant is staring industry
stakeholders in the face.
TEAMS, for instance, is being constructed at a cost of $82
million; EASSY Way, $235; Main One, $240 million, SEACOM,
$600 million and WACS, SAT-3 and GLO1 are all
multi-million-dollar projects.
One of the arguments was that, not many of the 72 GSM
carriers and 35 CDMA operators (like Kasapa) in Africa can
afford to buy fibre optics capacity.
Price per megabyte per month of fibre optic capacity differs
from one cable to the other; on SAT-3, for instance, a
megabyte of capacity costs between $4,500 to $12,000 per
month; 50 times higher than what similar fibre optics
capacity in the United States of America.
WIOCC, majority shareholders of EASSY Way, said their
capacity would sell for about a million dollars less than
what is already on the market.
Currently, there are at least 80 drivers, including major
telecom operators, internet service providers (ISPs) and
corporate investors onboard the fibre optics train and
actually driving the development of the technology.
That excludes a huge number of smaller telecom operators and
their customers from the fibre optics revolution.
Industry stakeholders also argued that fibre optics
consumption lies more in data communication and internet
connectivity than in voice, saying that the high level of
illiteracy, poverty, power supply bottlenecks and lack of
access to ICT infrastructure to a larger portion of Africa’s
population were genuine concerns for operators and
investors.
It is, for instance, projected that data costs, which now
averaged between $5,000 and $7,000 per megabit of bandwidth
on satellite, would be reduced drastically to $500 per
megabit on fibre optics, and that would translate into even
more affordable transmission of data for the average
African. (Source: TEAMS Kenya)
But people are not likely to do data communications if they
are not educated and or cannot afford to acquire ICT
equipment and hi-tech mobile handsets needed for that kind
of communication.
Again there is a huge power supply problem across Africa,
which even makes it difficult for people who are able and
can afford ICT equipment to do data communication
effectively.
The call is, therefore, for telecom operators in Africa to
collaborate with their respective governments of the
countries they operate in to deal with some of the
bottlenecks now, when not much of the fibre optics is live
on the Continent yet.
In Ghana, the Government has awarded a $150 million contract
to Huawei, a Chinese telecom infrastructure installation
company, to provide infrastructure that would allow
nationwide broadband connectivity on the back of the... long
National Fibre Optics Backbone.
Some of the operators, particularly MTN, have earmarked
funds to build ICT centres in all 10 regions of the country
to give internet access to schools and communities in the
hinterlands.
The Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC)
is also undertaking a similar project; providing ICT centres
and power sources to un-served and under-served communities
across the country.
GIFEC and individual operators have also collaborated to
provide lots of fixed wireless pay phones in rural
communities and in schools to enable people make and receive
calls as well as receive money transferred to them on pay
phones.
Speaking of money transfer, the telecom operators in Ghana
are also coming up with lots of Value Added Service (VAS),
which makes convergence technology such as voice over
internet protocol (VOIP), mobile money, mobile TV and others
relevant to the average Africa.
Indeed, convergence technology has been identified as one
way by which much more fibre optics capacity could be
consumed through the use of mobile handsets.
There was one more concern about submarine fibre optic
cables in Africa; security. The Chief Executive Officer of
the Nigerian Regulator, Ernest Ndukwe said African states
must put measures in place to ward off saboteurs and thieves
from submarine fibre optic path and from the landing
stations as well.
Paul Edwards, Chairman of Starcomms Communications, Nigeria,
who presided at the TWA 09 conference, said submarine fibre
optics is bringing the kind of information technology
available to the average citizen in a developed country to
the average citizen of an African country with Mr Sarat Dutt
Lallah, CEO of Mauritius Telecom adding that when the time
comes, Africans would be ready for it.
GNA
