MTN Group’s $90 million investment in the West Africa Cable System (WACS) makes it the single biggest investor in the biggest submarine fibre optics cable offshore the West African coast. A statement from the MTN Ghana said MTN’s investment in WACS will reach an important milestone this month when the 14 kilometre-long submarine cable lands at Yzerfontein in the Western Cape, South Africa. “As the single biggest investor in WACS, MTN will receive an initial capacity of 11% when the cable becomes commercially available in the second quarter of this year,” it said. The $650 million WACS submarine cable is an ultra high capacity fiber optic submarine cable system which links Southern Africa and Europe, spanning the west coast of Africa and terminating in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest cable system to ever land on the Africa continent and has 15 terminal stations which anchor along the western coast of Africa, including countries where MTN has operations such as Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast. The statement said MTN’s investment in WACS formed part of a myriad of submarine cables that Africa’s leading telecommunications provider has invested in an attempt to bring much-needed broadband capacity to the continent. It added that the investment was also to bolster Africa’s efforts to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals to bridge the digital divide and provide millions of its subscribers in its footprint in Africa and the Middle East the capacity and ability to use smart solutions. The statement said in addition to the $90 million investment that MTN ploughed in WACS, MTN had made a cash injection of $50 million in Europe India Gateway (EIG) - the submarine cable that connects Europe and India, $40,3 million in the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) – an undersea fibre optic cable system connecting countries of eastern Africa to the rest of the world, and $10 million in SAT-3/SAFE linking Portugal and Spain to South Africa, with connections to several West African countries along the route. “In EASSy, MTN has already been allocated an initial capacity of 30GB in line with its investment in the cable, while the company enjoys 317GG of capacity on the EIG cable,” it said. The statement quoted Managing Director of MTN South Africa, Karel Pienaar as saying “WACS will provide millions of MTN subscribers across Africa the much-needed bandwidth and will go a long way towards catapulting Africa into the digital age.” He noted that lack of bandwidth on the continent had arrested the development of Africa and has constrained the continent from achieving its full potential, saying that MTN’s investment in WACS and a myriad of other submarine cables bears testimony to the company’s commitment towards the development of the continent and reaffirms its long-held confidence in the future of the continent.” Pienaar added that as a multinational corporation with a strong presence in 16 African countries, MTN’s multi-million dollar investments in undersea cables is also underpinned by the critical role that telephony has played in contributing meaningfully to gross domestic product (GDP) and alleviating poverty. Quoting figures released by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Pienaar says mobile penetration in Africa is the lowest worldwide at 41%, and that Africa still lags behind when it comes to fixed (wired) broadband. “Although subscriptions are increasing, a penetration rate of less than 1% illustrates the challenges that persist in increasing access to high-speed, high capacity internet access in the region. “We believe that these investments MTN has made in submarine cables will vault Africa into the digital age and afford our subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond the capacity and ability to be part of this growing global village,” said Pienaar. The WACS Consortium members are: MTN Group, Angola Cables, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, Congo Telecom, Office Congolais des Postes et Telecommunications (OCPT), PT COMUNICAÇÕES, Togo Telecom, Tata Communications, Telecom Namibia, Telkom SA Ltd and Vodacom Group Ltd. Source: Adom News/Ghana