Alcatel goes EASSy

The Highway Africa news agency reports that Alcatel-Lucent has signed the contract to build the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy). EASSy will stretch along the east coast of Africa, from Mtunzini in Kwazulu-Natal to Port Sudan and then connect to major submarine cables running through the Red Sea. EASSy has been criticised (read Just say No to EASSy by RH Alden) for repeating the mistake made on the SAT3 connect up the west coast of Africa in creating monopolies in most countries on connectivity to the outside world. This is a very important point but it is at least somewhat encouraging that South Africa has included three operators in the consortium (newspaper article in Afrikaans) with a fourth to be added soon.