12 October, 2005
EASSy to link Africa with rest of the world
The eastern Africa submarine system (EASSy) will improve the lives of people in the East African region, as it will give them access to a lot of information and resources much easier than in the past.
The EASSy project coordinator, Mr John Sihra, who is the Director of Zentel in Tanzania, told The Gazette in an interview that the people of Botswana stand to benefit. He was speaking at the 2nd EASSy Construction and Maintenance Work Group (C&MAWG) meeting which was hosted by Botswana Telecommunications Corporation at the Grand Palm Hotel from 3 to 6October.
The Project, called ''Closing the final Link'', involves the construction of an undersea (under the Indian ocean) cable, which is intended to link Eastern, Southern and North African countries to the rest of the World. The Backhaul meting, which took place from 7 to 8 October, discussed connecting landlocked countries like Botswana to the EASSy.
Sihra explained that Botswana currently uses a satellite link to make international telephone calls. “This is expensive and generally limited, as it cannot enable as many calls to be carried out at the same time as EASSy will”, he said.
''In order to make a phone call to Tanzania, it has to go via a satellite in Europe. The telecommunications corporation in Tanzania then splits the costs with BTC, which are high. EASSy, on the other hand, will enable people to make a more direct connection, quicker and cheaper.''
'' It will promote macro socioeconomic development for the whole region. People’s lives will be improved by the availability of such a high performance system,'', he said. He says that in the medical sector, emergency operation may be conducted by making a connection to a specialist hospital in Europe or America.
The experts there would view the scene on a screen in real time and give instructions for surgery. This would be cheaper, quicker and more reliable than flying patients overseas.
Another example he gave was that of e-learning. Children and university students would not even need to go to as they could link directly to an e-learning environment in any language.
They would have access to classroom tutorials conducted online.
''The media would be able to broadcast news as it happens. The applications of the system are countless. Think of it as a big transportation bus that can continually be loaded with different things. The IFSC would benefit from its data, voice and Internet abilities. Banks would be able to make instant global responses. The economy on this would depend o this cable,” Sihra said.
