ICT: China Unicom, Huawei and CAMTEL sign agreements

Cameroon will succeed in capitalizing its privileged geographical position at the heart of the Gulf of Guinea, to become the hub of all Broadband Internet communications in Central Africa.

The two agreements signed on October 14, 2015, in Yaoundé, engaging China Unicom, Huawei and CAMTEL are for the realization of the submarine cable project to optical fiber between Cameroon and Brazil (emerging country in South America), with a length of 5917 km.

The State, through CAMTEL, chose Telefonica and China Unicom companies which are third and fourth worldwide telephony companies respectively as strategic partners to build (for 24 months) the first submarine cable linking Africa to Latin America.

Cameroon and Brazil will serve as a bridgehead for the transport of high-speed electronic communication between the two shores of the Atlantic. The impact of the construction and extension of infrastructure are the least attractive for the Cameroonian economy.

The Director General of CAMTEL David Nkoto Emane, explained that "when you look at the evolution of the use of the Internet in our country, we realize that existing cables cannot bear such communications since these infrastructures will reach saturation in a few years.""

Conclusion: the submarine cable should improve the capacity and coverage of national CAMTEL networks and other network operators to provide broadband services to households and businesses. Moreover, while enabling the development of an industry of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Cameroon, the realization of this project will directly connect the African continent and the South American subcontinent, without intermediate or right of transit.

Analyzing the scope of the future work, Ni Zheng, CEO of Huawei, said that "before this project, all Internet communications in Africa for South America transited through Europe. But once this initiative is carried out, such communications will be directed directly to Latin America."

It is shorter and more economical. CAMTEL will have more income to the extent that the company will rent its cable to neighbouring countries. In addition, Cameroon will be the hub of all Africa," the Cameroonian expert said. They stated that for now deliver content (voice, video, data) from Cameroon to Brazil will be a transit by at least one point in the West is mandatory. The large knots are London, New York, Amsterdam, and Washington.

A journey that has several disadvantages: This include listening and espionage risks as it passes through the infrastructure controlled by great powers whose interests are not always ours and have the opportunity to intercept and scan data to know the content. In those circumstances, confidentiality of contents is only one view of the spirit. While supporting this type of project, our engineers recommend going further by defining such a comprehensive policy to be able to make the most of it.

In other words, it is necessary that the countries of southern concerned shall establish the necessary complement, developing appropriate and interesting content that can replace those to which users in our countries are already accustomed.

These include mail servers, scientific content and general information sites that attract Internet users in the countries of the southern hemisphere. In all, it must be emphasized in broad strokes that increased South-South cooperation structure today in the reconfiguration of the global economic order, will fully benefit the developing countries if they show more creativity, determination and boldness. This only guarantees of regaining control of their destiny.