Seacom, the operator of the undersea cable system of the same name, says it has invested R100m in additional infrastructure in SA to meet what it calls the “continuous high growth in demand for broadband services and applications”.

The investment includes the purchase of fibre-optic links from Dark Fibre Africa and the installation of equipment for Seacom to manage the network linking the KwaZulu-Natal undersea landing station with two points of presence in Gauteng.

Dark Fibre Africa recently completed construction of the R350m system between SA’s economic heartland and the east coast.

“Initially, 100Gbit/s of fibre will be lit using current 10Gbit/s technology and a further 20 waves are expected to be lit within the next 12 months,” Seacom says.

The cable system between Mtunzini on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast and Gauteng has a design capacity of more than 8Tbit/s and Seacom says this is in line with plans to expand the marine portion of the cable to more than 4,8Tbit/s.

“The investment supports Seacom’s recently launched Internet Protocol platform that will drive the proliferation of content created in Africa and the regional hosting of international content,” says Seacom CEO Brian Herlihy. — Staff reporter, TechCentral