Namibia gets high speed internet

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

Swakopmund - Namibia's undersea telecoms fibre-optic cable laid along the West African coast went live on Tuesday, allowing high bandwidth connectivity for the country and its neighbours, officials said.

"The 14 900km West African Cable System (WACS) will bring direct connectivity between Namibia, West Africa and the United Kingdom," said Frans Ndoroma, managing director of Telecom Namibia at the connection ceremony.

The cable which landed in Swakopmund beach, some 370km west of capital Windhoek was developed by Telecom Namibia and French partner Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks for $600m.

"The cable will provide an internet speed of at least 5.12 Terabits," Ndoroma added.

Other landing points are in several African countries and in Britain, Portugal and Spain's Canary Islands.

The arrival of the cable which will also be extended to Botswana is expected to bring down prices for internet users and broadband connectivity.

"The investors would want some return on their investments, so I expect prices to fall only later, not immediately," said Marc Gregan, the manager of internet services provider AfricaOnline Namibia.

[Michael Alexander]

Wonder how this will benefit us?

Are we about to join the 1st world in terms of internet connectivity then?

Wonder when our speeds will change then?

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

Think my Web pages are loading much faster now.... almost sure...

[Alfred Boehme]

Did a speed test still the same..................................candle power

[Michael Alexander]

Although the cable has landed, we will only see the benefits in Q1 of 2012......

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

Although we will not benefit from faster connections or cheaper prices for awhile the bandwidth from your ISP to the rest of the world is bigger and better now.
This means that Web Browsing should be faster, less bottlenecks upstream.
Some of my Web Pages are loading almost instantly now. Some SA sites not that good.

[Robert Bruce]

So how has the bb speed improved?

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

Talked to soon, no improvement in the last year...

[Robert Bruce]

What does UUNET have to say about it? Err, if it is still UUNET who provide the network.

I worked for MCI Worldcom then Verizon who owned the network outright for many years. I cannot recall any major investment in the infratructure during my time which did you guys no favours.

I'm surprised that the submarine section was not taken off the existing Verizon SAT-3/WASC cable which is there from Portugal all the way to CT and via SAFE swings around to join SEACOM/TATA  TGN-Eurasia up to the Arabian peninsula through Suez to Malta.

As I recall it already goes into Luanda so would not have been a terrible pain to get a joint into Swakop the cross-country to WHK and all points from there.

But hey we have BT here and guess what - I don't get 20mb. I only average 6- 9mb and at times it freezes. No downtime yest but the local xchange needs a service! We are are out in the sticks and are lucky to get what we get. Wish it was at Metro level but I suppose we'd need a few million more residents in the village to qualify!

[Mike Stenson (RIP)]

Most people have less than 1mb here......there is 10mb but few can afford it.... 
I use a 3g connection... 3.9 mb max... Youtube movies still stutter most of the time...

[Robert Bruce]

We take high speed bb for granted here! So to get a decent speed you need to pay Rxxx.00 per month? I use the standard BT package here. Better than the Pipex connected speed I used to get. But this will improve as and when the techies get to work on the xchange beside the village pond.

But I still remember the days of 56k modem dial-up. The first time I connected I had to use a kit under the Turnpike brand.  I wonder what happened to them.