Seychelles is seriously considering plans to connect to a submarine cable that will provide international fiber connectivity to the islands.
The announcement was made by the president of the republic, James Michel during his recent state of the nation address before the National Assembly.
“Government will hold discussions with telecommunications providers and other stakeholders on the strengthening of our telecommunications capacity and the possibility of direct access to the worldwide network of cable systems through a submarine cable link,” says Mr. Michel.
Seychelles is presently totally dependent on satellites for its communications with the rest of the world.
The announcement follows various calls from the business community urging the government to open up dialogue on how they can share the financing cost of joining one of the six submarine cables providing connectivity to Africa.
“Such connection will make trade and communication easier between the international markets and Seychelles with added high capacity, speed and reliability and costumers will observe a great drop in Internet charges,” says VCS’ Executive Chairperson, Mark Hoareau.
To date one fiber has been laid in the Indian Ocean. SAFE (South Africa-Far East) is a connection of over 13,800 km from Cape Town in South Africa to Malaysia, linking Seychelles’ neighbours Mauritius, Reunion and India on the way.
Work is due to start on Eassy (East African Submarine Cable System) in the next few months and it is expected to come online by the end of next year.
“Our economic development depends to a large extent on our telecommunication capabilities. We are well positioned in that sector thanks to investment into GSM networks, Voice over IP, wireless broadband, ADSL, cable broadband and so on. But we need to move even further,” says the president.
Although on the one hand critics agree a new fibre optic cable could revolutionise Internet use in Seychelles by definitely making a “significant difference” to download speeds, some fear it could become a missed opportunity.
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) says a similar cable linking other parts of Africa has not provided the benefits of cheaper, faster Internet access because it is controlled by state-owned monopolies - or their privatised successors - which still enjoy near monopolies.
The APC says there will be a similar lack of competition in other parts of the continent, meaning prices will remain high and so high-speed access like broadband will still be beyond the reach of most people, unless other companies are allowed access to the international fiber connectivity.
