EASSy Cable

completed

The East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) is an initiative to construct and operate a submarine fiber optic cable along the east coast of Africa to connect eight coastal countries and island nations to each other and to the rest of the world. A special purpose vehicle (SPV) has been established by EASSy which consists of a small management and marketing team who will manage the implementation of the project. The SPV has contracted Alcatel, a specialist international company, to construct the project in coordination with the respective national telecom operators.The cable will have an initial equipped capacity of 20Gbits/sec, and an ultimate capacity when fully upgraded of 320Gbits/sec. The route will be from South Africa to Sudan, covering about 8,500 km, and connecting the following countries: South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan. Twenty-eight leading telecommunications operators (the Operators) from East and Southern Africa signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in December 2003 to carry out the construction and maintenance of EASSy. EASSy will be the first optical fiber connection for most of these countries to the global optical fiber network. In separate projects, EASSy signatories are working on the development of terrestrial backhaul connections to link land-locked countries of the region to the cable (including Botswana, Burundi, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe). IFC has been asked to provide financing to the SPV, along with five other DFIs including EIB, AfDB, DBSA, AFD/Proparco, and KfW. The terrestrial backhaul connections are separate from but associated with the project and are to be developed by the respective national operators. These components are being financed by the World Bank who will ensure adherence to their Safeguard Policies in implementing these projects.