Press Release

Thursday, November 10, 2011

MAIN ONE & SEACOM AWARDED ‘BEST PAN AFRICAN INITIATIVE’ AT AFRICACOM AWARDS 2011

Press Release - Thursday, November 10, 2011

Industry recognises the key role of innovative partnerships to improve African services

10 November 2011 –Main One and SEACOM, the only two privately funded and open-access based African submarine fibre optic cable systems, were awarded “Best Pan African Initiative” at the AfricaCom Awards 2011 ceremony held in Cape Town, South Africa, on Wednesday 9 November 2011. The award recognises an initiative taken by an organisation or a group of organisations to improve telecommunications services at a regional or continental level.

Funke Opeke, Main One CEO, explained: “Through this partnership, Main One and SEACOM  have extended their individual cable systems to the opposite coasts of Africa without the efforts required to construct brand new routes.

“The ability to connect the east and west coast of the continent directly results in improved throughput but also provides a system around most of the continent which provides improved redundancy for telecommunications operators.”

Commenting on the award, Mark Simpson, SEACOM CEO, said: “We are honoured to be recognised once again for our efforts in continuously extending pan-African connectivity by investing in infrastructure, products and services that meet the continent’s insatiable demand for bandwidth.

“This partnership shows our determination to find viable ways to extend our system with partners who share our vision of building the African Internet on an open and equitable basis.”

Main One and SEACOM announced in May 2011 that they had interconnected their west and east African cable systems to launch capacity services from PoP to PoP, from a STM-1 level and above. This partnership extends the Main One and SEACOM networks to create a system that offers connection between any SEACOM and Main One PoPs all around Africa.

Now in its fourth year, the awards are a serious recognition of the commitment and professionalism of these finalists to their core business and to changing the landscape of the continent, for the better. The ceremony forms part of the AfricaCom conference, a pan-African communications event now in its 14^th year, which is attended by leading African operators, service providers, ministries, regulators and equipment and solutions providers in Africa. For more information on the awards, please visit http://www.africacomawards.com.

ENQUIRIES

About Main One

Main One is the first submarine cable company offering open access, wholesale broadband capacity in West Africa. This objective has been realized in a submarine cable system which commenced operations in July 2010 linking West Africa to the rest of the world via Portugal and the United Kingdom.

Main One’s vision is to be the most reliable, scalable and professionally managed international telecommunications service provider on the African continent. The company’s high capacity fibre ensures that reliable, affordable and first class service delivery of much needed broadband capacity is easily available and accessible within West Africa for regional and international operators as well as service providers.

Main One remains steadfast in the pursuit of its mission to eradicate the communication challenges which limit African businesses from being truly global. It is achieving this mission by providing the infrastructural platform to help make their businesses available and reachable from anywhere in the world.

www.mainonecable.com

About SEACOM

SEACOM is a privately financed, developed and owned submarine fibre optic cable network bringing high quality, affordable broadband capacity to Africa through the sale of wholesale international bandwidth and associated services on an open-access basis since July 2009.

Stretching some 17,000km along the eastern and southern African coastlines and onwards to India and Europe, the SEACOM system has already connected many African countries including South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Djibouti and Ethiopia bringing in many instances previously unavailable access to unrestricted bandwidth.

The SEACOM network offers bundled backhaul, open-access points of presence and global partnerships, to provide high quality, cost effective, end-to-end connectivity. Tiered pricing coupled with open access system integration solutions means that SEACOM has moved beyond the cable to become a major pan-African network with a full suite of IP services and unprecedented benefits for customers.

SEACOM believes in a world where the African Internet experience is interconnected and characterized by abundant local content, minimal latency as well as fast download and streaming speeds. This vision is at the heart of SEACOM’s commitment to Building the African Internet.

www.seacom.mu