The deal, which is subject to approval by the South African Competition Commission, is being struck through subsidiary SEACOM South Africa. IT will boost the firm’s reach in the country whilst acting as a platform for the expansion of its business services, SEACOM said.
FibreCo’s network spans over 4,000km of fibre and includes 59 points of presence across South Africa, including major data centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London.
SEACOM’s existing network connects South Africa with the East Coast of the African continent, India, and Europe. It is already linked to FiberCo’s network through the WACS cable and the SEACOM subsea cable system.
FibreCo was setup in 2009 and said that its shareholders believe “they have met the original intent behind starting the business” by successfully “transforming South Africa’s long-haul bandwidth transmission landscape”.
SEACOM said in a statement: “This acquisition represents another major milestone towards SEACOM achieving its vision to expand its African footprint through the consolidation of fibre assets. SEACOM believes this is necessary for the evolution of the market, particularly as we move into the 5G environment with its requirement for pervasive fibre networks.”
In October, SEACOM completed its acquisition of the SME-focused Internet Service Provider, SAI, in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. SAI will be rebranded as the SEACOM KwaZulu-Natal office and will be tasked with leading SEACOM’s expansion in the KwaZulu-Natal market for fibre Internet access to business-customer premises.
As a company, SAI provides telecommunications solutions to meet the requirements of their subscribers, including high-performance Internet access, voice, hosting solutions, security and data protection. In addition its staff are adept at applying the latest technologies to customer solutions as demand for high-speed business connectivity and quality bandwidth at affordable prices continues to grow.
