Will Eassy miss the World Cup?

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 18 September 2006

The East Africa Submarine System (Eassy), a fibre-optic undersea cable, seems to be stuck in the egg for now due to political problems, or is it just Telkom that’s pushing for a too high profit margin?

African countries seem to be slow to back up Eassy while this telecommunications cable is crucial to improve bandwidth in South Africa before the 2010 soccer World Cup. At a cost of US$280m or approximately R1960m, Eassy necessitates the need of a combined effort. Only seven countries have so far signed up: South Africa, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Madagascar, Tanzania and Uganda.

Kenya seems to be one of the spanners in Eassy’s works. They are apparently planning a rival system of their own and don’t share South Africa’s sentiment in regard to finance, ownership and cost of access of such a cable.

Telkom, one of the largest participants in Eassy, warned that it “...would abandon its plan to invest in Eassy if it could not be guaranteed a reasonable financial return” (All in a twist, 16 September 2006). Well, most of us are well aware of Telkom’s idea of a “reasonable financial return”. Telkom is reportedly planning to invest well above $10m in Eassy. I think most South Africans would prefer that Telkom stay out of it all together. We want lower telecoms prices in South Africa not Telkom attaching itself to a real initiative and eating away at the benefits again. It is well within Telkom’s financial capacity to give South Africans a well-deserved $10m plus gift with no strings attached. If Telkom does that the thousands of South Africans it already cheated out of a good ADSL experience for one might forgive its sins. We’re sure even charges to engaged numbers might be forgiven or the use of spin-doctors for that matter.

The above and other factors seem to hold Eassy back although the South African Government is confident that Eassy will not bite the dust but will end up in the sea.

We really hope we can trust them on this one since lower telecoms prices will really be something worth celebrating down here in South Africa.