Seacom is targeting the fourth quarter of 2026 to reach financial close on its massive planned subsea broadband cable system that will connect Africa with Europe and Asia.
Dubbed Seacom 2.0, the cable system will be among the highest-capacity submarine cable systems ever built, offering a two petabit per second design capacity from 48 fibre pairs.
No 48-pair subsea fibre systems have been built to date anywhere in the world, though Seacom believes the technology will be ready for commercial deployment in the coming years. Seacom is targeting late 2029 or early 2030 to carry the first traffic on the new system.
Seacom 2.0 could cost between US$1.5-billion and $2-billion to construct. The company is targeting a mix of debt and equity funding, with all existing shareholders – they include Remgro and Andile Ngcaba’s Convergence Partners – having agreed to participate in the fundraising.
Although Seacom is hoping to deploy a cable with 48 fibre pairs, this may have to be dialled back to a 24-pair system should technology limitations demand this. Even in that eventuality, Seacom will use what’s called a “multicore configuration”, which effectively will deliver the same capacity as a 48-pair system.
“Equipment for a 48-pair system is highly specialised. The cable diameter is a lot larger. The repeater systems [under the ocean] are totally different,” Seacom’s group chief digital officer Prenesh Padayachee told journalists at a media conference at the Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town on Tuesday.
Four phases
“We know these cables will break. If we are comfortable the vessels (specialised repair ships) can repair a 48-pair system, we will deploy that [technology],” he said.
Seacom 2.0 will be built in four phases. The first stretch will be deployed between Egypt and Momabsa in Kenya, with the second phase extending the cable from Kenya to South Africa. The plan is to build multiple cable landing stations – “two or three” each – in major African markets such as Kenya and South Africa.
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Seacom chief strategic alliance officer Richard Schumacher said the routing of the new system will avoid Yemeni waters, where attacks on shipping by rebels has resulted in damage to subsea infrastructure, including Seacom’s cable.
“The new cable will go from the Red Sea to Mombasa in African territorial waters. If we do face cable cuts in future, we hopefully won’t have the same challenges we’ve had historically,” Shumacher said. When Seacom’s cable was severed in the Red Sea last May, it took five months to repair due to the political instability in the region.
Seacom plans to keep operating its first subsea system, which was deployed 16 years ago, until at least the mid-2030s, five years after Seacom 2.0 is scheduled to go live.
“We will keep running Seacom 1.0 as long as it’s feasible to maintain it,” said Padayachee. Once it’s decommissioned, it will be recovered from the ocean floor and recycled. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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