I'm confused: I was under the impression, not the least from Bitange
Ndemo's* *comments on the KICTANeT list, that Kenya had pulled out of
EASSy? Any clarifications welcome.

Alan

EASSY winner of fibre-optic cable race

By A STAFF WRITER
The EastAfrican, April 9 2007

Which of the upcoming submarine cable projects out of Mombasa will rollout
first? That is the big question in Kenya where the government is investing
in two parallel projects at the same time — namely. The East African
Marine System (TEAMS) and the East Africa SubMarine Cable System (EASSy).

Although the government has justified the investment in TEAMS on the
grounds that the EASSy project will take too long to roll out, the
indications so far is that EASSy which has already received the support
and commitment of 22 telecom operators representing 20 countries, — 90 per
cent of which are African operators, both private and public — is likely
to move much faster.

So far, the project has secured all its funding targets and committed
leading development financial institutions to the project.

Its funding arrangement is structured to allow equity partners to either
participate through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) or come in as direct
investors.

The SPV, consisting mainly of regional operators, has already been
incorporated in Mauritius under the name West Indian Ocean Cable Company
Ltd. Financial instruments for the SPV are in process and have been
finalised in partnership with the development funding institutions
comprising the World Bank, IFC Group, European Investment Bank, KFW of
Germany, AFD Prop Arco of France, the African Development Bank and the
Development Bank of South Africa.

On March 9, nine EASSy members formally signed the supply contract with
Alcatel-Lucent, who will be implementing the EASSy fibre-optic cable
project on a full turnkey basis.

The process of manufacturing the necessary equipment is going on and the
approximation is that the project will be concluded by the end of 2008.
The overall project cost will be in excess of $200 million.

In compliance with international and national regulatory requirements, all
operators having been conducting environment and social impact analyses
studies which are expected to conclude this month.

The EASSy submarine network will span nearly 10,000km linking eight
countries from Sudan to South Africa via Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya,
Tanzania, Madagascar and Mozambique.

The initial capacity will be 20 gigabits per second with ultimate capacity
of 320 gbits/s per fibre pair.

Last week, the EASSY project received a major boost when the World Bank
announced that it has approved $164.5 million for high speed connectivity
for Kenya, Burundi and Madagascar.

East and Southern Africa is the only region in the world that is not
connected to the global broadband infrastructure and accounts for less
than one per cent of the world’s international bandwidth capacity. As a
result of this “missing link,” the region relies on satellite
connectivity, with costs among the highest in the world.

One Kenyan call-centre entrepreneur told the World Bank board of directors
that the region simply cannot compete with others. “To put 25 agents on
the phone will cost us close to $17,000 a month. Elsewhere, it will only
cost $600-$900 a month,” said Nicholas Nesbitt, chief executive of
KenCall.

“It is absolutely imperative that something be done right now to make
bandwidth affordable. Otherwise, we’re going to miss a huge opportunity
and people are simply going to say that Africa is not ready for these
kinds of jobs, is not ready for business.”

By the end of the programme, it is expected that all capitals and major
cities in East and Southern Africa will be linked to competitively priced
high-bandwidth connectivity





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