Buffalo City Metro mayor Xola Pakati last week signed off on a landmark sub-marine cable network deal which will help beef up the metro’s internet connectivity from 2020.
Pakati’s delegation to Mauritius earlier last week included East London Industrial Development Zone ( IDZ) CEO Simpiwe Kondlo, city advisor Andrew Murray, BCM’s head of international relations Darby Gouden as well as Pakati’s office manager Sthembiso Khanyile.
In February, the Dispatch reported on the plan, which is being championed by Mauritius-based IT company IOX Cable Limited.
IOX Cable chief executive Arunachalam Kandasamy said phase one of the project would connect India to Mauritius and further to SA.
“We aim to offer flawless connectivity to Mauritius, Reunion Island and Madagascar. This will also provide the much needed high capacity route in the southern hemisphere, which will seamlessly connect Asia with Africa and furthermore to Europe and America,” he said.
Khanyile said as things stood, the metro’s cables were almost reaching their end of life cycle (25 years), and this had directly affected the speed at which connectivity occurred.
IOX Cable Ltd and Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) first signed a turnkey agreement in June 2017 to build this first open sub-sea cable connecting Mauritius and the island of Rodrigues to South Africa and India.
The system will span more than 8,850km and will provide an ultimate design capacity of more than 13Tbps per fibre pair. It is set to enhance communication capabilities along the Puducherry, India, to East London, South Africa route.
The deal, Pakati said, made BCM the first SA city to have the latest advanced information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure from a connectivity point of view.
“Our IDZ will be able to have the most advanced data centre operating at obscene speed. The landing of the cable in East London also serves as a catalyst for immense possibilities for our investors and public at large and will make doing business much easier,” said Pakati.
Ratepayers need not panic about the costs, Khanyile said, as the bill for the delivery of the fibre would be settled in full by IOX Cable Limited.
Khanyile said there were more positive spinoffs, as once the cable “lands on our shores” different vendors would be able to connect to it.
“It will also provide real-time transmission of (medical) patient information to India, London or anywhere else for that matter,” said Khanyile...