Neotel, South Africa's first converged communications network provider, will invest R20 million in the South Africa segment of the SEACOM cable. This new US$650 million private-equity funded submarine fibre optic cable will connect South Africa to several East African countries, Europe and India giving the country access to up 1.28Tbps of new international bandwidth.
"We congratulate SEACOM for financial close announced today. We are particularly excited that the South African investors in SEACOM have a 50% stake, making this SEA Cable one of the country's success story", says Mr. Ajay Pandey, Managing Director, Neotel.

Neotel, which is majority owned by South Africans with 19% held by Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment investors, will invest the R20 million towards the cable landing station and all facilities within the South African territory. Furthermore, Neotel will operate the facilities on an open access basis thus stimulating the country's international bandwidth market.

"Neotel remains committed to a new era in the telecoms industry of South Africa where access to international bandwidth will not be as constrained." says Pandey.

SEACOM's System has a design capacity of a 1.28Tbps, which is approximately ten times of the current capacity of the SAT-3 cable. The system is planned to be commissioned and ready for service during 2009. The targeted commissioning date will place South Africa in a much stronger position to support the 2010 FIFA World Cup whose demand for international bandwidth, and in particular the HDTV broadcast, will be unprecedented.

About Neotel
Neotel is South Africa's first converged communications network operator. It provides a range of value-added voice and data services for businesses, wholesale network operators and providers and consumers using its pure-IP Next Generation Network, powered by Neotel's high-performance fibre optic backbone. Neotel connects the major centres in South Africa to each other and to the world, directly linking the country into VSNL's global Tier 1 network. Neotel offers fresh thinking, a creative approach and flexible solutions for communications in South Africa.

About SEACOM
SEACOM provides high capacity bandwidth linking businesses, individuals, and communities in Southern and East Africa, Europe and South Asia. When it is fully functional in 2009, SEACOM will be a service provider of international fibre optic bandwidth along the East Coast of Africa linking Southern and East Africa, Europe and South Asia.

SEACOM has an enormous capacity of 1.28TB/s, to enable high definition TV, peer to peer networks, IPTV, and surging Internet demand. Pricing will be significantly lower than current satellite or fibre pricing.

SEACOM will be ready to serve Southern and East African markets from 2009, well in time to meet the bandwidth needs of the Confederations Cup and the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa, and the growing requirements of the economies in the countries it serves.

SEACOM has been structured to meet the policy objectives of Governments and NEPAD. SEACOM will be first to launch services with a planned Ready for Service date of June 2009.

SEACOM is more than three quarters African owned.