By Mua Patrick Mughe in Yaounde
Feasibility studies for the
laying of a close to 6000 km long sub marine fibre optic cable dubbed CBCS from
Kribi to Fortaleza in Brazil are far advanced, project coordinator, Pierre Paul
Ndjonga told reporters Tuesday February 16 at a press launch in Yaounde. Effective construction is due to commence by
the close of 2016.Estimated at FCFA 198 billion, the project is due to be
completed in exactly 30 months, Ndjonga said. “But given the pace at which we
are going, we would complete the work at least three months before the
deadline, he added.” It is being funded at 85% by China’s Eximbank while Camtel
(backed by the state) is covering the remaining 15% cost. During the first
three years of exploitation, Ndongo said CBCS is expected to generate at least
45 million US dollars per month.
The CBCS
is designed to provide low latency routing
between Africa and Asia in the east and the Americas in the west, Camtel’s
planning and projects manager, Joseph Ndongo said. CBCS, Ndongo continued will
provide a direct route from Africa to America, providing Cameroon, Brazil and
their neighboring countries with improved performance.
The CBCS will contain four fibre
pairs, each capable of transmitting 100 wavelengths with a bandwidth of
100Gbit/s. Upon completion, CBCS will be
the fifth submarine cable to land in Cameroon after the SAT3,WACS, ACE and Main
One
which will provide diversified onwards connectivity to countries along the West
Coast of Africa and to Europe.
In a statement last year, CAMTEL’s Managing Director, David NkottoEmane
had announced that “negotiations are
quite advanced to make Cameroon the first African country to have a direct submarine
cable link with South America.”
While presenting a synopsis of his company’s involvement in
the project, the president of China Unicom, Lu Yimin, had stated last year that
“Africa and Latin America are strategic emerging regions for our global
business. China Unicom is very pleased to partner with CamTel, Telefónica and
Huawei Marine to build this high-speed and low-latency infrastructure to
connect Africa and Latin America. Not only will it help meet the increasing
demand for local internet access, it will also improve our service to Chinese
enterprises which have entered into the African and Latin American markets.”
“Telefónica
as the leading digital telco in Latin America brings into the project its
existing national and international facilities, years of local experience and
future commitment. The CBCS will offer a new reliable route in the South Atlantic
enabling us to provide a better secure service to our customers”, noted Juan
Revilla, CEO Wholesale Business Unit in Telefónica.
It
should be noted that as part of the contract, Huawei Marine will deploy its
submarine repeater, the RPT 1660, with a titanium-based slim-line profile that
allows direct lay and plough burial. This simultaneous operation significantly
reduces system installation costs by eliminating the need for an expensive
secondary, post-lay burial operation.
“Having
delivered more than 20 submarine cable projects in the past six years, our
experience demonstrates we have the capability and confidence to meet our
customer’s requirements in both system design and delivery,” Mike Constable,
CEO of Huawei marine had maintained.
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