SEACOM Story Update
FEAST Workshop
Bruxelles, February 25th, 2010
Jean-Louis Parmentier
Chief Operating Officer, SEACOM Ltd
Parmentier@seacom.mu
1
Feb 2010
SEACOM snapshot
SEACOM is a privately funded African company, offering a 1.28Tb/s submarine fiber optic
cable system linking Africa to Europe and Asia via the Middle East
“SEACOM is open for business and ready to supply complete solutions for Africa’s Broadband on
Demand needs”
SEACOM’s drivers
Fibre topography
 Wholesale provider of bandwidth
 Deliver infrastructure support for the growth of the
ICT sector, e.g. BPO, call centers, education
 Be committed to the principles of open and
equitable access to broadband
 Facilitate the development of high volume, low cost
market encouraging new industries to emerge,
stimulating further demand
 Compliment GSM and fixed line national carriers by
providing low cost high capacity bandwidth and
additional redundancy
 Be fully funded & majority African owned (76.25%)
2
Feb 2010
Defining the product
In order to address Africa’s broadband needs, SEACOM’s business case had to focus on an
open access, low cost service that travels right to the point of need not just the shoreline
1
2
Affordability
Core ideas
behind
SEACOM’s
business
case
Accessibility
 Target those in need – East coast
 True end-to-end solution from
London to Johannesburg, from
Mumbai to Nairobi…
 Ensuring ‘open access’ policy
consistent with the Kigali protocol
 Focus in getting backhaul to
landlocked countries in need
 The “Death of distance” through a
single price
 Working in harmony with existing
channels and building redundancy
 Providing services to medical &
educational institutions, partnering
with Ubuntunet & TENET
 Applying best practice risk
management & disaster recovery
across the full value chain & 24
hour global support
Without true open access, Africa will limit the potential of tomorrow’s unkown
innovators
3
Feb 2010
Activation progress
Progress Dec 2009
Deployment Information
Network Schematic
• RFCS 23rd July 2009
•
are the active parts of the
network in South east Africa :
• Currently over direct MumbaiMarseilles SMW4 capacity
• Completion Med & Red Sea Q2
2010
4
Feb 2010
Activity figures
Achievements & challenges Jan 2010
Traffic breakdown Capacity
 Activated Capacity between Africa to :
• Europe 91%
Availability
 Wet cable : 100% ✔
 Terrestrial backhaul :
• India 6%
• Fiber over power lines : > 99,9% ✔
• Africa 2%
• Underground fiber with route protection
: > 99,9% ✔
• South East Regional 1%
• Underground fibers non redundant ☹
– Worst 3 months >97,8%
– Other > 99%
5
Feb 2010
Abundant Bandwidth Will Bring Near-term Change to Africa
Provision
Educational program
 SEACOM has strong company and
shareholders commitments to
Educational program initiative in Africa
 Thanks to broadband access,
information, specifically Educational
content, is widely and freely available
 SEACOM is offering reduced cost of
international bandwidth for Universities
and Research Institutions
 SEACOM has extended the below cost
bandwidth offer to the NREN of Southern
and Eastern African Universities as well
as to uBhuntuNet
• Tenet
• Kenet
• University Dar Es Salaam
• for non commercial and Acceptable
Usage purposes
6
Feb 2010
Immediate impacts of SEACOM: Kenya in focus
Went operational on 23 July 2009
Impacts on Kenya include:
Within 3 days Kenya reports 3-5 times
increase in internet speeds
Within 14 days of launch Safaricom
CEO reported 200% increase in data
traffic
International bandwidth supply
increase of 700%
7
Feb 2010
Immediate impacts of SEACOM on Mozambique
Went operational on 23 July 2009
Impacts on Mozambique include:
International bandwidth supply
increase of 850%
One ISP customer doubled bandwidth
from September 2009 for same price,
while others now offer end user choice
(double bandwidth for same price OR
same bandwidth for half the price)
After connection to SEACOM, ISP
verified a rapid increase in bandwidth
usage, and is now connecting their
aditionnal STM-1 circuit in order to
respond to their customers’ needs
8
Feb 2010
Immediate impacts of SEACOM: Uganda in focus
Went operational on Spetember 2009
Impacts on Uganda include:
Favorable comments from Uganda
Telecom on speed of the network and
the IP Transit service
9
Feb 2010
SEACOM’s coverage and impact on Tanzania
Went operational on 23 July 2009
Impacts on Tanzania include:
Pre-SEACOM international
bandwidth supply= 300Mb/s.
Post-SEACOM international
bandwidth supply= 3000Mb/s,
1000% increase
Vodacom MD stated that margins
increased 30% the day they switched
from satellite to SEACOM
University of Dar Es Salaam
increased capacity 1000%+ through
SEACOM relationship, 1st truly
“wired” university in East Africa
10
Feb 2010
Immediate impacts of SEACOM: Rwanda in focus
Went operational on Sept 2009
Impacts on Rwanda include:
“After a full connection to the under
sea cable [i.e. SEACOM], Rwandatel’s
internet subscriber base is projected
to increase by 10% in the first 12
months” (AllAfrica.com news, Jan 14,
2010)
“After signing a contract with
SEACOM connectivity last year,
Rwandatel acquired 155 Mbps of
capacity….The deal is expected to help
Rwandatel consolidate its position as
Rwanda’s leading Internet Service
Provider” (AllAfrica.com news, Jan 14,
2010)
11
Feb 2010
Immediate impacts of SEACOM: South Africa
Went operational on 23 July 2009
Impacts on South Africa include:
Monthly lease cost for a STM-1 circuit
declined by over 50%, from 2.1M ZAR
(USD 283,090) per month in 2006 to
0.8M ZAR (USD107,844) per month
currently.
MTN announced a 50% increase in
capacity for certain corporate clients
in South Africa while Telkom and
Mweb also announced similar
increases
International bandwidth supply
increase of 700%
12
Feb 2010
SEACOM way forward
SEACOM’s strategy going forward will be to continue to pursue various business areas in
order to fulfill Africa’s unmet broadband needs
Addressing the needs of bandwidth hungry African economies
Removing national and
international infrastructure
bottlenecks
Facilitating research &
education through
discounted bandwidth
Supporting the east and
southern African economic
growth by significantly
lowering communications
costs

A commercial dynamic is engaged

Broadband demand is not going to taper out….it is going to continue on this curve

The full value chain will be opened up allowing for low cost access right from the
international long haul to the last mile to all Internet Service Providers

There will be significant M&A activity as more services get bundled in the quest to
customize solutions and minimize churn

SEACOM is committed to share this journey…
13
Feb 2010
Thank You
14
Feb 2010