Seacom, a service provider of international fiber optic bandwidth along the East Coast of Africa, has entered into a maintenance and storage agreement with E-Marine, a submarine cable solutions provider.

E-Marine will now take responsibility for maintaining a 9,800 km stretch of the cable between Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Ras Sidr, Egypt and Mumbai, India.

It will also provide secure storage for supplies and accessories in its newly opened depot in Port Of Salalah, Oman.

“Seacom is a $600 million dollar state-of-the-art cable system connecting South and East Africa to Europe and Asia,” explained Jean-Louis Parmentier, chief operating officer of Seacom.

“It provides critically important broadband connectivity to countries that have previously been unable to access these services either because of a lack of options, or because the price has been excessive. With the support of E-Marine, we will ensure that these countries are consistently connected and we are delighted to begin this relationship,” he added.

Seacom is 76.25 per cent owned by African investors and will provide high capacity bandwidth linking business and communities in Southern and East Africa, Europe and South Asia. Seacom’s total length is 17,000kms and the cable is designed with an enormous capacity of 1.28TB/s that will enable high definition TV, peer to peer networks and IPTV.

It will also help national operators to satisfy surging Internet demand. The cost of providing these services using Seacom will be significantly lower than current satellite or fiber pricing, helping to make Internet services more accessible to millions of people across the continent.

Omar Bin Kalban, CEO and managing director of E-Marine said: “Since inception, E-Marine has committed to build a reputation for excellence and quality in the Gulf, Indian Ocean, East Africa and Red Sea. We have successfully developed our service portfolio and are offering a valuable proposition to our client partners.”

E-marine is an ISO certified company that and one of the market leaders in submarine cable installation, maintenance and repair. E-Marine owns three cable ships and one motorized barge all are fully equipped with state-of-the-art equipments, said a statement. – TradeArabia News Service