The maintenance works, to cost $3 million, will enhance the security of the undersea cable in Fujairah against anchoring ships and construction disturbance in anticipation of the proposed expansion of the Port. The expansion works at the Port of Fujairah will commence this July up to August 2016 TEAMS was built to connect Kenya and the East African region to the rest of the world as a partnership between the Kenyan Government and Emirates Telecommunication Establishment (Etisalat). Other shareholders include Safaricom and Telkom Kenya among the big players.  

TEAMS undersea alternatives

Much as internet from TEAMS cable will be facing some downtime, all is not doom and gloom. The East African region is connected to the rest of the world via 3 undersea high-speed fibre-optic cable systems, namely: TEAMS, EASSy (Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System) and SEACOM. TEAMS has 4,500km undersea cable system delivering 120Gb/s which is upgradable to 1.2Tb/s compared to EASSy which has 10,000km capable of 10Tb/s. SEACOM, is by far the most extensive undersea cable system at 17,000km and spans the entire African continent, delivering 100Gb/s but with a capacity of 4.2Tb/s