SOUTH AFRICA – Seacom, a submarine communications cable operator has completed the acquisition of 100% shareholding in FibreCo Telecommunications for an undisclosed sum.
Based in South Africa, FibreCo owns and operates a national fibre network providing infrastructure and connectivity services across the country.
The transaction, made through Seacom’s affiliate, Seacom South Africa enables the company to connect its East and West coast submarine assets with a robust network of trans-South African fibre.
Founded in 2009, FibreCo develops an open-access long-haul terrestrial fibre optic broadband network.
Its open-access network ultimately enables multiple operators and service providers to acquire their own fibre or scalable connectivity on a shared network allowing them to deliver a wider choice of products and faster broadband speed to their customers.
“This acquisition reaffirms SEACOM as the provider of choice to local and international data communications customers by expanding its wholesale portfolio to include dark-fibre infrastructure services in the metro and long-distance marketplace,” said Seacom CEO, Byron Clatterbuck.
“We also plan to “light-up” the FibreCo national infrastructure, enabling SEACOM to deliver affordable, high speed-internet connectivity and cloud services to bandwidth-starved cities and towns along our new fibre routes.
FibreCo customers will continue to experience the same high levels of service to which they are accustomed, with the added benefit that Seacom will make further investment into the network to expand its portfolio of services.”
Seacom connects South Africa to the east coast of Africa, India and Europe while FibreCo connects over 60 points of presence across South Africa, including major data centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London.
The company says the acquisition significantly strengthens its operations in South Africa by creating a platform for the expansion of its business services.
It will enable the delivery of high-speed Internet connectivity and cloud products into smaller cities and towns across the country, which have typically been under-serviced.
Additionally, it builds on Seacom’s vision to expand its African footprint through the consolidation of fibre assets.
“This transaction forms part of SEACOM’s greater growth strategy, which has included several ISP acquisitions, including most recently MacroLan and SAI,” said Chief Development Officer, Suveer Ramdhani.
“While these previous transactions built up both our regional capability and our footprint of on-net buildings in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, the FibreCo network serves as a platform for SEACOM’s enterprise strategy to be extended to the rest of South Africa.”
