| 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%), andVSNL (8.93%). | |
Landing points
| |
| Total length | 13000 km |
| Topology | trunk and branch |
| Design capacity | 340 Gbit /s |
| Technology | Fibre-optic |
| Date of first use | 2001 |
SAT-3/WASC orSouth Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable is asubmarine communications cable linkingPortugal andSpain toSouth Africa, with connections to severalWest African countries along the route.
It forms part of the SAT-3/WASC/SAFE cable system, where theSAFE cable links South Africa toAsia. 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 theMiddle East, such asSEA-ME-WE 3 andFLAG. SAT-3 has a capacity of 340Gbit/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]
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 includingBenin,Togo,Niger, andNigeria. 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 theNigeria 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 betweenPointe-Noire in- theRepublic of the Congo to the international cable was cut off by a fishing vessel forcing network providers to provide internet usingV-SAT.[8] The cable was restored after 15 days.[9]
Gabon,Congo,DRC andCameroon 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 theWACS Cable System after a rock fall in theCongo Canyon.[12][13] Internet Speeds inSub-Saharan Africa were impacted, despite new cable systems such as Google Owned Equiano recently landing in the country.[14][15][16]
and inAfrica:
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 fromTelkom SA, and due to Telkom SA's high prices has so far refused to do so.
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 inGhana, 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 inEast Africa.[18]
The cable itself consists of four fibers, usingErbium-doped fiber amplifier repeaters andwavelength division multiplexing.