WorldWideWorx, Arthur Goldstuck and new cables

The talk given by Arthur Goldstuck this evening at Bandwidth Barn was very enlightening. Entitled ‘the cables are coming’, it concentrated on the new undersea cables that are due to be going on line in the next few years, the effect they will have on the internet in SA and the internet trends in SA in general going forward.

2 pieces of information struck me as very interesting:

1. out of the 290Gbps of capacity on the SAT3/SAFE system, only 40Gbps is used by Telkom for internet access

2. out of the 1.2Tbps of capacity on the soon-to-be-launched Seacom system, only 80Gbps will be used for internet access

A recent posting on myadsl.co.za by Laurie from SAOL indicated ( http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=2838622&postcount=76 ) that prices were unlikely to come down purely because of Seacom. WWW’s trending and research shows the same sort of trends. There are a no. of reasons for this including:

1. Neotel controls the only link from Midrand to Mtnzuni where the Seacom cables lands. As such they control the pricing which is not currently favourable

2. Seacom and its partners need to recoup their initial investment in the cable which has a considerable cost attached. If others are charging a lot, then they will do the same, trying to make profit while they are able to.

In conclusion, we’ll be waiting a bit longer for benefits as a result of Seacom and other cable systems, and I think that the main one will be increased caps instead of price drops. Fast speeds are also coming soon with Telkom apparently finished with 8Mbps testing and dslam upgrades in process.

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