18 October 2019

Cable operator Seacom has lit up a one terabyte fibre line connecting Johannesburg and Cape Town, the company told the media. 

It comes at a time when the firm is said to be lighting up the fibre assets of FibreCo, which it bought almost a year ago.

The new addition owns and operates a national open access dark fibre network, providing infrastructure, connectivity and services across the whole of South Africa.

Seacom previously only had capacity from Durban up to Johannesburg, but since this new Johannesburg to Cape Town development, Seacom is said to be targeting East London. 

Furthermore, the fibre push is thought to be part of Seacom’s strategy to diversify its business and rely less on its subsea cable operations.

The sector is growing, with competition potentially coming from Silicon Valley giants Google (with Equiano, the first phase of which is to be completed in 2021, connecting Africa with Europe) and Facebook (with Simba, which will circle the continent), among others. 

Seacom launched Africa’s first broadband submarine cable system along the continent’s eastern and southern coasts in 2009.

In 2019, it owns Africa’s most extensive ICT data infrastructure and partners African businesses, network carriers and service providers.