TEAMS (cable system)
Encyclopedia
TEAMS is an initiative spearheaded by the government of Kenya to link the country to the rest of the world through a submarine fibre optic cable. It was first proposed as an alternative to EASSy
, the East African Submarine Cable System. The Kenyan government had grown frustrated with the ownership model favoured by South Africa, the time it was taking and what it perceived as an attempt by South Africa
to control the cable. As a result, in November 2006, the Kenyan government decided to partner with the Emirates Telecommunication Establishment (Etisalat)
to build its own fibre optic cable.
Although the Kenyan government has decided to pursue their own fibre optic cable, they are still committed to EASSy
.
Five companies — Alcatel-Lucent
, Tyco Telecommunication
, Fujitsu Corporation
, NEC Corporation
and Huawei Technologies
— had placed their bids for the building of the TEAMs undersea cable.
On October 11, 2007, Alcatel-Lucent
were awarded the $82 million contract to lay the cable. Construction began in January 2008 on the Emirates' side.
On 12 June 2009 the cable arrived in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa
and was launched by the President of Kenya Mwai Kibaki
, the Prime Minister of Kenya Raila Odinga
and other dignitaries.
on the coast of Kenya
to Fujairah
in the United Arab Emirates
.
upgradeable to 640 Gbit/s should the initial capacity be insufficient. The project has since exercised an option in the Construction & Maintenance Agreement (CMA) to increase the capacity to 1.2 Tb/s
of which 120 Gbit/s will be initial capacity at project start. Excess bandwidth
will be absorbed for use by the Kenyan government if demand from private operators does not meet expectations.
is the only region in the world that has neither intra-African nor direct international cable network access. The region instead relies on expensive satellite
communication. Data costs in the country are among the highest in the World with costs of up to per megabit
of bandwidth. The cable is expected to reduce costs to below per megabit, although UUNET
Kenya believes this drastic drop in price to be overestimated and that price drops will only occur once other cables, namely SEACOM and EASSy
, are completed to create price competition between them.
A number of regional governments and private sector investors have shown interest in the project. Governments interested in purchasing bandwidth are Rwanda
, Southern Sudan, Ethiopia
, Uganda
, Tanzania
and Burundi
.
Kenya hopes to become a bigger player in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
as India has done in the recent past. Kenya's nascent call center business has grown from employing 200 people in the year 2006 to 3,000 this year, despite relying on expensive satellite-based communications. Kenya's Ministry of Information and Communications Permanent Secretary
Dr Bitange Ndemo has said that in order for the BPO sector to compete, the government must increase its bandwidth to 500 megabit
s per second by the end of the year (2007) and subsidize costs until the cable is completed.
TEAMS (Kenya) Ltd consists of:
EASSY
The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System is an undersea fibre optic cable system connecting countries of eastern Africa to the rest of the world....
, the East African Submarine Cable System. The Kenyan government had grown frustrated with the ownership model favoured by South Africa, the time it was taking and what it perceived as an attempt by South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
to control the cable. As a result, in November 2006, the Kenyan government decided to partner with the Emirates Telecommunication Establishment (Etisalat)
Etisalat
Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, branded trade name Etisalat is a UAE based telecommunications services provider, currently operating in 18 countries across Asia, the Middle East and Africa...
to build its own fibre optic cable.
Although the Kenyan government has decided to pursue their own fibre optic cable, they are still committed to EASSy
EASSY
The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System is an undersea fibre optic cable system connecting countries of eastern Africa to the rest of the world....
.
Five companies — Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent is a global telecommunications corporation, headquartered in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France. It provides telecommunications solutions to service providers, enterprises, and governments around the world, enabling these customers to deliver voice, data, and video services...
, Tyco Telecommunication
Tyco International
Tyco International Ltd. is a highly diversified global manufacturing company incorporated in Switzerland, with United States operational headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey...
, Fujitsu Corporation
Fujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is the world's third-largest IT services provider measured by revenues....
, NEC Corporation
NEC
, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
and Huawei Technologies
Huawei
Huawei is a Chinese multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China...
— had placed their bids for the building of the TEAMs undersea cable.
On October 11, 2007, Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent is a global telecommunications corporation, headquartered in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France. It provides telecommunications solutions to service providers, enterprises, and governments around the world, enabling these customers to deliver voice, data, and video services...
were awarded the $82 million contract to lay the cable. Construction began in January 2008 on the Emirates' side.
On 12 June 2009 the cable arrived in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa
Mombasa
Mombasa is the second-largest city in Kenya. Lying next to the Indian Ocean, it has a major port and an international airport. The city also serves as the centre of the coastal tourism industry....
and was launched by the President of Kenya Mwai Kibaki
Mwai Kibaki
Mwai Kibaki is the current and third President of the republic of Kenya.Kibaki was previously Vice President of Kenya for ten years from 1978–1988 and also held cabinet ministerial positions, including a widely acclaimed stint as Minister for Finance , Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for...
, the Prime Minister of Kenya Raila Odinga
Raila Odinga
Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...
and other dignitaries.
Path
The 4500 km fibre optic cable is to link the city of MombasaMombasa
Mombasa is the second-largest city in Kenya. Lying next to the Indian Ocean, it has a major port and an international airport. The city also serves as the centre of the coastal tourism industry....
on the coast of Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
to Fujairah
Fujairah
Fujairah is one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, and the only one on the Gulf of Oman in the country's east instead of Persian Gulf .-History:...
in the United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
.
Capacity
The TEAMS cable was originally designed to have an initial capacity of 40 Gb/sGigabyte
The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...
upgradeable to 640 Gbit/s should the initial capacity be insufficient. The project has since exercised an option in the Construction & Maintenance Agreement (CMA) to increase the capacity to 1.2 Tb/s
Terabyte
The terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix tera means 1012 in the International System of Units , and therefore 1 terabyte is , or 1 trillion bytes, or 1000 gigabytes. 1 terabyte in binary prefixes is 0.9095 tebibytes, or 931.32 gibibytes...
of which 120 Gbit/s will be initial capacity at project start. Excess bandwidth
Bandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
will be absorbed for use by the Kenyan government if demand from private operators does not meet expectations.
Impact
Currently, East AfricaEast Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
is the only region in the world that has neither intra-African nor direct international cable network access. The region instead relies on expensive satellite
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
communication. Data costs in the country are among the highest in the World with costs of up to per megabit
Megabit
The megabit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information or computer storage. The prefix mega is defined in the International System of Units as a multiplier of 106 , and therefore...
of bandwidth. The cable is expected to reduce costs to below per megabit, although UUNET
UUNET
UUNET founded in 1987, was one of the largest Internet service providers and one of the nine Tier 1 networks. It was based in Northern Virginia and was the first commercial Internet service provider...
Kenya believes this drastic drop in price to be overestimated and that price drops will only occur once other cables, namely SEACOM and EASSy
EASSY
The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System is an undersea fibre optic cable system connecting countries of eastern Africa to the rest of the world....
, are completed to create price competition between them.
A number of regional governments and private sector investors have shown interest in the project. Governments interested in purchasing bandwidth are Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
, Southern Sudan, Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
, Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
and Burundi
Burundi
Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi , is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its capital is Bujumbura...
.
Kenya hopes to become a bigger player in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
Business process outsourcing
Business process outsourcing is a subset of outsourcing that involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of specific business functions to a third-party service provider. Originally, this was associated with manufacturing firms, such as Coca Cola that outsourced large segments...
as India has done in the recent past. Kenya's nascent call center business has grown from employing 200 people in the year 2006 to 3,000 this year, despite relying on expensive satellite-based communications. Kenya's Ministry of Information and Communications Permanent Secretary
Permanent Secretary
The Permanent secretary, in most departments officially titled the permanent under-secretary of state , is the most senior civil servant of a British Government ministry, charged with running the department on a day-to-day basis...
Dr Bitange Ndemo has said that in order for the BPO sector to compete, the government must increase its bandwidth to 500 megabit
Megabit
The megabit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information or computer storage. The prefix mega is defined in the International System of Units as a multiplier of 106 , and therefore...
s per second by the end of the year (2007) and subsidize costs until the cable is completed.
Ownership
Ownership of the cable is as follows:- 15% - Etisalat (UAE)
- 85% - TEAMs (Kenya) Ltd
TEAMS (Kenya) Ltd consists of:
- 20% - Government of Kenya (through Min. of Finance)
- 20% - Safaricom Ltd
- 20% - Telkom Kenya Ltd
- 10% - Kenya Data Networks Ltd
- 10% - Econet/Essar Telecom Ltd
- 5% - Wananchi Group
- 3.75% - Jamii Telecom Ltd
- 1.25% - Broadband Access/AccessKenya Ltd
- 1.25% - Africa Fibrenet (Uganda) Ltd
- 1.25% - InHand Ltd
- 1.25% - iQuip Ltd
- 1.25% - Flashcom Ltd
See also
- SAT-2SAT-2 (cable system)SAT-2 is a submarine communications cable linking Melkbosstrand, South Africa, to El Medano, Tenerife Island, Spain and Funchal, Madeira islands, Portugal...
- SAT-3/WASCSAT-3/WASC (cable system)SAT-3/WASC or South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable is a submarine communications cable linking Portugal and Spain to South Africa, with connections to several West African countries along the route. It forms part of the SAT-3/WASC/SAFE cable system, where the SAFE cable links South Africa...
- SAFESAFE (cable system)The South Africa Far East cable is an optical fiber submarine communications cable linking Melkbosstrand, South Africa to Penang, Malaysia.It was commissioned in 2002 and built by Tyco Submarine Systems of the USA with an initial capacity of 10 Gigabits per second, which is upgradeable to 130...
- Main One
- List of international submarine communications cables
Sources
- http://www.bdafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4868&Itemid=5847
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7081214.stm
- http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/afr/events/arusha-ITU-NEPAD/Documents/doc11(zantel).pdf
- http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=120703
- http://uk.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUKL1111608720071011