Plans for a new submarine cable to link the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have been unveiled.
The plans were presented at a recent BRICS Business Forum in New Delhi, India, by Andrew Mthembu, chairman of i3 Africa and Imphandze Investments – the two South African entities promoting the project.
During the Forum, business leaders of the BRICS countries engaged in discussions about critical areas of development, including:
* Enhancements to financial connectivity for increasing trade and investment opportunities between the BRICS countries;
* Key role of ICT and innovation to improve business exchanges;
* Co-operation for energy security with focus on green and renewable energy;
* Importance of co-operation in Life Sciences to BRICS growth potential, and
* Role of BRICS countries in ensuring global food security.
The BRICS Cable has been in the planning and feasibility stages since March 2011, a few months after the admission of South Africa into the BRICS economic bloc. Currently, the BRICS countries are connected to each other via telecommunications hubs in Europe and the US, resulting in high costs, and the risk of potential interception of critical financial and security information by non BRICS entities.
The recent discussions at the BRICS Business Forum concluded that a critical factor of success for the various initiatives relies on an advanced high-speed communication infrastructure. This also has to ensure high-capacity and direct connectivity between the BRICS countries to offer ubiquitous and reliable services.
The BRICS Cable will be a 34 000-km, two-fibre pair with 12,8Tbps of capacity. The fibre opric cable system will link Russia, China, India, South Africa, Brazil and the US. It will interconnect, amongst others, with the WACS cable on the west coast of Africa, and the EASSy and Seacom cables on the east coast of the continent. This will give the BRICS countries immediate access to 21 African countries and give those African countries access to the BRICS economies.
The projected ready-for-service date is mid- to second half of 2014.
Mthembu comments: “We are willing to work with potential operators and investors to review the configuration, routing, capacity and project financing structure to take a new step in the viability of this project. The studies are available on request to potential participants in the project.”