Telecom Namibia Ready to Join WACS

Telecom Namibia says it is ‘ready’ to connect the country to the West African Cable System (WACS), a consortium high speed submarine system linking Africa to Europe, which it hopes will lead to higher-bandwidth, cheaper data and voice services for all end-users. The USD600 million fibre-optic cable has reached the shores of Namibia, whilst Telecom has already deployed infrastructure to link its landing station at Swakopmund to its domestic network and expects that commercial services could be launched by the second quarter of this year, reports local newspaper New Era. The project will give Namibia its first direct access to global submarine cable networks.

The WACS consortium consists of twelve companies: Angola Cables, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, Congo Telecom, MTN, Office Congolais des Postes et Telecommunications, Portugal Telecom/Cabo Verde Telecom, Tata Communications/Neotel, Telecom Namibia, Telkom SA, Togo Telecom and Vodacom. The main contractor is Alcatel-Lucent.