MTN says investment in submarine cables "reaches new frontiers"

April 08, 2011
Accra, April 8, GNA - MTN Group's $90 million investment in the West Africa Cable System (WACS) will reach an important milestone this month when the 14-kilometre long submarine cable lands at Yzerfontein in the Western Cape.

A statement issued in Accra on Friday by MTN said its investment in WACS formed part of "a myriad of submarine cables" that MTN had invested in an attempt to bring broadband capacity to the continent, bolster Africa's efforts to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals to bridge the digital divide and provide millions of its subscribers in its footprint in Africa and the Middle East the capacity and ability to use smart solutions.

"As the single biggest investor in WACS, MTN will receive an initial capacity of 11, and that Africa still lags behind when it comes to fixed (wired) broadband.

MTN said in addition to the $90 million investment that it had ploughed in WACS, it had made a cash injection of $50 million in Europe India Gateway (EIG) - the submarine cable that connects Europe and India, $40.3 million in the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) - an undersea fibre optic cable system connecting countries of eastern Africa to the rest of the world, and $10 million in SAT-3/SAFE linking Portugal and Spain to South Africa, with connections to several West African countries along the route.

In EASSy, MTN has already been allocated an initial capacity of 30GB in line with its investment in the cable, while the company enjoys 317GG of capacity on the EIG cable.

GNA