Construction of alternative sea cable set to begin in November

Internet connectivity and reliability is still low due to dependence on a single sea cable.

What you need to know:

The cable is likely to boost internet speed, accessibility and reliability.

Kampala

The National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U) has said the construction of an alternative internet cable will start this November. The move will benefit internet users, and act as a safeguard against dependence on a single cable as well as riding internet speed, access and reliability.

Speaking at the 8th international conference on computing and research in Kampala, Mr Peter Kahigi, the NITA-U director of technical services said: “The construction of an alternative cable through Tanzania will start in November with funding from the government and other financiers.”

He added: “This will help widen the broadband internet transmission throughout the country and ensure internet reliability. It is another step to achieving the 2015 global broadband target set by the International Telecommunication Union.”
However both NITA-U and ministry of ICT are still tight-lipped on the details of the cable construction budget.

In a speech read for him, Mr Eric Yang, the Huawei chief executive officer, highlighted the need for Africa to over come the challenge of the absence of a high-capacity backbone network that could spur faster broadband penetration. “Increasing broadband connectivity is emerging as a high priority for policy makers across the continent. However, the lack of high-capacity backbone network is still a major challenge,” Yang said.

“Although broadband connectivity is bound to spur growth in many African economies, there is still plenty of work that needs to be done in building the telecommunications infrastructures that will link the continent to the global village,” he added.

The two day conference was organised by the Makerere University College of Information Technology and Huawei Technologies.

Boosting internet usage.
It brought together key players in the telecommunication sector who discussed the foremost channels of boosting the performance of internet mainly. According to the global broadband targets, internet user penetration should clock the 60 per cent mark worldwide in 2015, with at least 50 per cent in developing countries and 15 per cent for LDCs.

In Uganda, internet usage has continued to grow exceeding the 5 million mark early this year. However, even with the growth, cases of unreliability continue due to failures on the main cable.

Seacom is Uganda’s main inland internet connection, which picks it link from other undersea cables including: The East African Marine System (TEAMs) and Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy).

Severally, the cable has had damages, leaving users on the mercy of the expensive and unreliable satellite connections.

The latest damages occurred in March when Seacom’s inland partner in Kenya who delivers capacity to Uganda suffered from an outage hurting local businesses mainly those which depend on internet.