July 2010
WIOCC-EASSy fibre cable goes live
The WIOCC-EASSy fibre optic cable went live on Friday July 16th, marking  the final completion of a very successful construction program which started  in Maputo , Mozambique in December 2009. All the Eassy landing stations have been completed, tested and are fully operational. CEO of WIOCC, Chris Wood, said “EASSy will be the first east coast system to connect on a direct route to Europe, making it the lowest latency system for traffic to key internet peering points in Europe and North America”.  EASSy will add to the diversity of cable systems and increase competition for sub-sea connectivity in the region and bring much needed resilience to the networks of the region’s telecoms operators.

June 2010
Testing underway on WIOCC’s EASSy cable system
Work on the EASSy submarine cable system has progressed to the Testing stage, which consists of the following phases:

Phase 1: Stand-alone testing - tests all the equipment in each of the landing stations

Phase 2: Segment commissioning - Alcatel-Lucent’s engineers test every segment of the cable individually. A complementary set of test are then conducted by WIOCC-EASSy’s engineers

Phase 3: Network commissioning - tests the entire system end-to-end

Phases 1 and 2 are already complete and we will shortly start testing the provisioning of services end-to-end across the system, leaving us on track to connect the first customers’ traffic in July 2010.

April 2010
EASSY to take on Seacom, Sat-3 soon
The construction of WIOCC’s East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) is complete; promises affordable international bandwidth pricing

April 2010
EASSy construction completed ahead of schedule
The construction of the East Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) was completed on Monday 19th April, a few days ahead of schedule, marking a milestone toward the launch of the cable in June. The joining of the two segments making up WIOCC's EASSy network was completed on the Ile de Batz in the Indian Ocean just off the East African coast at 0040 local time.

April 2010
EASSy link to Tanzania now complete
Installation of the EASSy cable is rapidly approaching completion. The cable landed at Dar es Salaam on April 7th; more than 9700km of the cable lay is now installed, and testing will start later this month.

April 2010
Meet WIOCC in Johannesburg and Nairobi
WIOCC will be attending a number of events over the coming months. Satcom Africa 2010 is taking place April 12-15th at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg. WIOCC’s Commercial team are manning the WIOCC stand (#51) throughout the event. James Wekesa, CCO, is also participating in the “Fibre and Satellite – Friend or Foe” panel discussion on April 14th. East Africa Com 2010 will be at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi, Kenya on April 27-28th. Ryan Sher, CTO, will be participate in the “International Connectivity” panel session, and the WIOCC stand (#14) will again be manned throughout the event. ITW 2010will take place at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington DC, USA on May 24-26th. We are in the process of arranging meetings at the event, so please get in touch at info@wiocc.net if you’d like to set something up with us

March 2010
Kenya and the Comores connected to EASSy
Over 9,230km of the EASSy submarine cable have been installed as of 30th March 2010. The Northern Ship - the Ile de Sein - landed in Port Sudan on 29th Jan 2010, in Djibouti on 13th Feb 2010 and Mombasa, Kenya on 22nd March 2010. The Southern ship - the Ile de Batz - landed at Mtunzini, South Africa on 15th Feb 2010, at Maputo, Mozambique on 24th Feb 2010, at Toliary, Madagascar on 12th March 2010 and at Moroni, the Comores on 27th March 2010. The cable is expected to arrive at Dar es Salaam landing station during the first week of April, and the joining of the two ends of the cable – the final splice – will take place later in the month.

March 2010
EASSy cable lay >50% complete
As of March 14^th, over 6,500km (nearly two-thirds) of the EASSy cable had been successfully deployed into the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The cable has now reached Toliary in Madagascar, where the shore-end is being laid. The two cable laying ships are heading for Mombasa and Moroni (in the Comores), where they are scheduled to arrive before the end of March. 

March 2010
You'll have the chance to meet with WIOCC at a number of events this month. We'll be speaking at  the CTO's 4th e-Government Africa Forum in Mozambique (23-25th) and at IIR's 5th Annual Broadband Summit in Johannesburg (29-31st). We'll also have an exhibition stand at both events, as well as being at The Digital Africa Summit in Kampala, Uganda (9-11th). Next month, we'll be speaking and exhibiting at SatCom Africa in Johannesburg (12-15th) and at East Africa Com in Nairobi (27-28th); while in May we'll be heading to the US to attend ITW 2010 in Washington (24-26th). Why not come along to the WIOCC stand and introduce yourself...