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SAT-3/WASC

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South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable (SAT-3/WASC)
Owners:
Telkom Group (13%), France Telecom (12.08%), Nitel (8.39%), AT&T (12.42%), and VSNL (8.93%).
Landing points
  • Chipiona, Spain
  • Altavista, Gran Canaria, Spain
  • Sesimbra, Portugal
  • Dakar, Senegal
  • Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
  • Accra, Ghana
  • Cotonou, Benin
  • Lagos, Nigeria
  • Douala, Cameroon
  • Libreville, Gabon
  • Cacuaco, Angola
  • Melkbosstrand, South Africa
Total length13000 km
Topologytrunk and branch
Design capacity340 Gbit /s
TechnologyFibre-optic
Date of first use2001

SAT-3/WASC or South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable is a submarine communications cable linking Portugal and Spain to South Africa, with connections to several West African countries along the route.

It forms part of the SAT-3/WASC/SAFE cable system, where the SAFE cable links South Africa to Asia. The SAT-3/WASC/SAFE system provides a path between Asia and Europe for telecommunications traffic that is an alternative to the cable routes that pass through the Middle East, such as SEA-ME-WE 3 and FLAG. SAT-3 has a capacity of 340 Gbit/s while SAFE has a capacity of 440 Gbit/s. The SAT-3 system together with SAFE was built by a consortium of operators .[1]

History

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SAT-3/WASC/SAFE began operations in 2001, providing the first links to Europe for West African internet users and, for South Africans, taking up service from SAT-2 which was reaching maximum capacity. SAT-2 had been brought into service in the early 1990s as a replacement for the original undersea cable SAT-1 which was constructed in the 1960s.[citation needed]

In November 2007, no internet access was available through SAT-3 for about seven days in parts of central Africa. A government official from Cameroon blamed a technical failure at the underwater SAT-3 high sea fibre optic terminal, about forty kilometres from Douala.[2] Many ISPs in Cameroon had transitioned their connections from independent satellite connections to SAT-3 in mid-2007 creating serious communication difficulties during the seven days.

In late July 2009, SAT-3 cable damage caused internet blackouts in multiple west African countries including Benin, Togo, Niger, and Nigeria. Togo and Niger were "completely offline" and Benin was able to "reroute its net traffic through neighboring countries."[3] However, the three nations were able to use alternative satellite links in order to maintain some Internet communication with the rest of the world.[4] Nigeria suffered a 70% loss of bandwidth that caused problems in banking, government and other mobile networks. President of the Nigeria Internet Group, Lanre Ajayi, said, "[the cable is] a critical national resource because of its importance to the economy and to security."[5] Two weeks may pass before the cable is fixed.[6]

Nigeria portion of SAT3 cable was damaged in March 2016.[7] On June 9, 2017 the link between Pointe-Noire in- the Republic of the Congo to the international cable was cut off by a fishing vessel forcing network providers to provide internet using V-SAT.[8] The cable was restored after 15 days.[9]

Gabon, Congo, DRC and Cameroon experienced internet disruption due to the rupture of the cable on 17 January 2020 off the coast of Gabon.[10] It was fixed on January 27.[11]

On 6 August 2023, the cable system snapped simultaneously with the WACS Cable System after a rock fall in the Congo Canyon.[12][13] Internet Speeds in Sub-Saharan Africa were impacted, despite new cable systems such as Google Owned Equiano recently landing in the country.[14][15][16]

Landing Points

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  1. Sesimbra, Portugal
  2. Chipiona, Spain (though this landing is considered to be part of the Telefónica domestic network)
  3. Alta Vista in Las Palmas, Canary Islands

and in Africa:

  1. Dakar, Senegal
  2. Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
  3. Accra, Ghana
  4. Cotonou, Benin
  5. Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria
  6. Douala, Cameroon
  7. Libreville, Gabon
  8. Cacuaco, Angola
  9. Melkbosstrand, South Africa meeting SAFE

Although Telecom Namibia holds ownership in SAT-3/WASC, Namibia has no landing point. Namibian internet users currently have no access to SAT-3/WASC, because Telecom Namibia would have to purchase capacity from Telkom SA, and due to Telkom SA's high prices has so far refused to do so.

Bandwidth costs

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Prices for SAT-3 bandwidth in the African countries it serves are high (US$4,500–12,000 per Mbit/s per month, over 50 times greater than bandwidth prices in the U.S.)[17] in large part because operators have monopoly control of access.[17] The lowest rates occur in Ghana, where the Ghana Internet Service Providers Association (GISPA) organized a two-year negotiation through a court fight against Ghana Telecom.[17] SEACOM president Brian Herlihy states that the owners of the SAT-3 cable have cut prices by 50% since the 2007 announcement of Seacom, in order to compete with the arrival of Seacom in East Africa.[18]

Technology

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The cable itself consists of four fibers, using Erbium-doped fiber amplifier repeaters and wavelength division multiplexing.

See also

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  • Atlantis-2 Argentina linked to Portugal
  • EASSy East Africa Cable linking South Africa and East African nations.
  • LION
  • Main One Portugal linked to West Africa
  • SAT-2 Portugal linked to South Africa
  • SEACOM East coast of Africa
  • GLO-1 Nigeria to the UK
  • ACE South Africa linked to France
  • WACS South Africa linked to the United Kingdom

References

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  1. ^ Southwood, Russell (February 7, 2006). ICASA Enquiry Into Telkom's SAT-3 Monopoly Awaits Government Response. My ADSL.
  2. ^ "Internet access off in Cameroon for 7th day". Retrieved November 7, 2007.
  3. ^ Scott, Peter (2009-07-30). "Nigerian 419ers now 404ers". Fudzilla. Archived from the original on August 2, 2009. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
  4. ^ "BBC NEWS – Technology – Cable fault cuts off West Africa". BBC News. July 30, 2009. Retrieved July 30, 2009.
  5. ^ "Internet disrupted in West Africa". Al Jazeera. 2009-07-30. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
  6. ^ Cable fault cuts off West Africa. BBC News. July 30, 2009.
  7. ^ Oluwagbemi, Ayodele (2016-03-29). "Ntel repairs SAT-3 submarine cable". Punch Newspapers. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
  8. ^ AfricaNews (2017-06-14). "Congo-Brazzaville facing major internet outage: submarine cables damaged". Africanews. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
  9. ^ AfricaNews (2017-06-27). "Internet connection restored in Congo-Brazzaville after 15 days". Africanews. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
  10. ^ Andzongo, Sylvain. "WACS and SAT3 : Gabon, Congo, DRC and Cameroon experience internet disruption due to an incident on the Cameroonian landing point". Business in Cameroon. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
  11. ^ BRM. "Cameroon reconnects to WACS and SAT3 submarine cables". Business in Cameroon. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
  12. ^ "Twin cable breaks impacting SA internet - TechCentral". 2023-08-07. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  13. ^ "Bad news about break in undersea cables". 8 August 2023.
  14. ^ Malinga, Sibahle (2023-08-08). "SA fibre operators hit by dual submarine cable break". ITWeb. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  15. ^ "MyBroadband - Internet Cable Break". 10 August 2023.
  16. ^ "Damaged West African and South Atlantic 3 undersea cables could take months to fix". 2023-08-08. Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  17. ^ a b c Osiakwan, Eric (2008). "The Case for "Open Access" Communications Infrastructure in Africa: The SAT-3/WASC cable, Ghana Case study" (PDF). Association for Progressive Communications. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 19, 2017. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  18. ^ van der Merwe, Christy (July 19, 2009). Seacom to boost capacity, but prices won't drop overnight. Engineering News.
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