Deployment phase of the West Africa Cable System underway

Johannesburg, 8 April 2009 – A multinational consortium of leading telecommunications operators today signed a Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) and Supply Contract for the implementation of the West Africa Cable System (WACS).

WACS is a 3.84 terabit per second submarine fibre optic cable that will link countries in Southern Africa, Western Africa and Europe, with high capacity international bandwidth. Planned landing points include , , , the Democratic , The Republic of Congo, , , , , , Cote d’Ivoire, , and the . The landings in Namibia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Congo and Togo will provide the first connections for these countries to a global submarine cable network.

Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks has been contracted to supply the 14,000 km long cable system with all associated landing points, which is expected to be ready for service by early 2011.

Costing about US$600-million, the project has brought together a multitude of nations and some of the world's most influential telecommunications players in a joint effort to use state-of-the-art technology in linking more people more efficiently than ever before.

Pieter Uys, Chief Executive Officer of Group and Chairman of the WACS steering committee noted that “the West Africa Cable System represents a significant telecommunications infrastructure investment through a joint effort of a number of African and Global operators and will have ample capacity to serve the region’s international connectivity needs for many years to come.”

The telecommunications companies that have signed the WACS Construction and Maintenance Agreement include Angola Telecom, Broadband Infraco, Cable & Wireless, MTN, Telecom Namibia, Tata Communications (), Portugal Telecom, Sotelco, Togo Telecom, SA and Vodacom Group.

According to Uys, “WACS will provide Africa with faster and better connectivity to Europe and the rest of the world.”