The government of Seychelles announced it is now connected to a second undersea optical fiber system that will boost access to connectivity in the country. The Pakistan East Africa Cable Express (PEACE) system landed on the Perseverance Island, a man-made island northeast of Mahé, the country's largest island, on Monday, March 7.

Benjamin Choppy (pictured), the Principal Secretary of the ICT Ministry, sees this infrastructure as an opportunity for the country to secure and improve its means of communication. Since 2011, Seychelles has been connected to a single undersea optical fiber cable, the Seychelles East Africa System (SEAS), which links it to Tanzania.

“For over 10 years, we had only one and this presented a risk for us if anything happens, especially today. If you look at the amount of traffic that we have on the cable, over 95 percent is on the SEAS cable. If something went wrong it would be catastrophic,” said Benjamin Choppy.

The PEACE is a 15,000 km undersea cable system spanning Africa, Europe, and Asia. It incorporates the latest 200G and WSS technology in its design to transmit more than 16 terabits of data per second per fiber pair. These capabilities give it the means to meet the growing connectivity needs in the country.

The Seychelles government has invested $20 million to connect to this new high-speed telecom infrastructure that will support the digitization of public services and the development of the digital economy. Amadou Dina, managing director of Airtel Seychelles, said the telecom company has already designed new products that will be launched when the new system goes live next May.

Adoni Conrad Quenum