Alca-Lu lays first Seychelles cable

Alcatel-Lucent has scooped a $30 million (€22 million) contract to lay the first submarine cable linking the Seychelles to mainland Africa.
 
The deal with Seychelles Cable System will see the vendor connect Seychelles city Victoria to Tanzania's largest city Dar es Salaam through 1,900 km of cable, to deliver the first high-speed network to the archipelago of 115 islands that comprise the Seychelles.
 
Benjamin Choppy, principal secretary of the Seychelles department of ICT, said the link will provide “a cost effective, reliable, solution that will give us an alternative to satellite connections.”
 
The Seychelles are currently entirely reliant on satellites for internet access, Choppy noted.
 
A recent surge of deployments of submarine cable to Africa will result in a five-fold increase in networks by 2012 compared to a decade ago, Alca-Lu states, with total capacity set to hit 20.2 Tbps compared to 0.2 Tbps in 2000.
 
Seychelles Cable Systems is a collaboration between the island’s government, Cable & Wireless and Airtel.