Neotel, South Africa’s second national operator has signed a contract with SEACOM to land a new sea cable in South Africa by 2009.

The cable which will connect South Africa to Europe and India, will also land in Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya and UAE. Construction is planned to start later this year.

With a capacity of 1.28 Tbps it is hoped the cable will support the expected exponential growth in Africa.

Looks like 2009/2010 is going to be a great year for low cost bandwidth in South Africa. Neotel

Lack of capacity and competition on South Africa’s current submarine cables means broadband currently costs more than 10 times as much as in Europe.

The South African government plans to change this situation, they have proposed spending $700 million on a new submarine cable linking South Africa to Brazil and London.

“The government, which controls Telkom, has repeatedly said high costs for phone calls and Internet access are inflating the cost of doing business, deterring investors and impeding the roll-out of basic communications to the poor.” Reuters

The first link is expected to be ready by 2009 connecting South Africa to Brazil and the London stage will follow shortly there after.

It seems the wait for cheaper Internet is long from over but at least the plans are on the table and may I be the first to say this is tax money well spent.

With the extreme mobile use in South Africa, networks are struggling to keep up. This leaves everyone fighting hard to be the best. Both MTN and Vodacom are under huge pressure to keep up, however Telkom their main supplier is struggling to meet their increasing needs. So now they are looking elsewhere. The 2nd national fixed line operator Neotel could be a good partner, however both MTN and Vodacom have opted to install their own fibre lines.