Altech acquires 8.5% share in international submarine cable system.

Altech announced today that it has acquired an 8.5% stake in The East Africa Marine System Limited (TEAMS).

The $11 million (R88 million) deal was brokered through Altech’s subsidiary Kenya Data Networks Limited (KDN) and now gives the company a 10% voting right on the project.

TEAMS is a 500km undersea fibre optic cable project which connects Kenya with the United Arab Emirates and facilitates connectivity in the Eastern African region. It was spearheaded by the Kenyan government and provides for 1.28Tbps of capacity, although upon completion in September it will offer an initial capacity of 128Gbps.

“Africa is in the infancy stages of a sustained growth trajectory in broadband across multiple technologies, services and geographies. The acquisition of a stake in TEAMS compliments KDN’s strategy of being a cross-border, pan African network operator,” said Altech Chief Executive Officer, Craig Venter.

“We have a two pronged approach, the first being ample bandwidth-access via the undersea cable, the second, being our extensive terrestrial network throughout East Africa. Consequently the acquisition will be beneficial to achieving our aim of molding KDN into the primary internet solutions provider throughout the continent,” concluded Venter.

Currently East Africa is the most extensive coastline on the continent without sufficient access to fibre optic cables. Despite this the recently landed SEACOM cable and EASSy, which is set to conclude in June 2010, will significantly increase the total bandwidth capacity delivered to the region.

source MyBroadband – 20 August 2009