Ten years and $500-million later, communications provider Seacom has transformed beyond being a cable operator into a pan-African service provider, offering a full suite of resilient and scalable data services.

In line with this, the group has refreshed its corporate identity to reflect its rise to the forefront of providing hyperscale data infrastructure and its diversification to managed data network services and cloud computing services.

“We have changed our identity,” Seacom CEO Byron Clatterbuck told the media at the company’s ten-year celebrations, noting a repositioning to expand and grow amid a dramatic global shift in the dominance of cloud computing and social media.

Reflecting on the past decade since launching Africa’s first high-speed broadband submarine cable system along the eastern and southern coastlines in 2009, he discussed how the company has evolved from cable operator to service provider to comprehensive business enterprise solutions firm.

Seacom, which steadily increased the availability of international bandwidth to the currently operating 1.5 Tb/s of lit capacity on its subsea cable system, is aiming to double its capacity by the end of this year, while lighting up recently acquired FibreCo assets in South Africa.

, Seacom acquired FibreCo, which owns and operates a national fibre network providing infrastructure and connectivity services across South Africa.

The acquisition marked Seacom’s completion of its ‘African Ring’ by connecting its east and west coast submarine assets, in Mtunzini and Yzerfontein respectively, with a robust network of trans-South African fibre.

Seascom further connects South Africa to the east coast of Africa, India and Europe, which enables a fully redundant, high-speed ring protection for diversity around the African continent.

FibreCo connects over 60 points of presence across South Africa, including major data centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Durban, Port Elizabeth and East London, with 4 000 km of owned intercity and metropolitan fibre.

Seacom now plans to “light up” the FibreCo national infrastructure, enabling the company to deliver affordable, high-speed Internet connectivity and cloud services to cities and towns along the route.

The company will also further invest in the network to expand its portfolio of services, says Clatterbuck.

The deal forms part of Seacom’s greater growth strategy, which has included several Internet service provider acquisitions as it builds a “superhighway”.

“While these previous transactions built up both our regional capability and our footprint of on-net buildings in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, the FibreCo network serves as a platform for Seacom’s enterprise strategy to be extended to the rest of South Africa.”

Seacom is evaluating several other acquisitions, with an emphasis on companies in urban centres in South Africa and Kenya that could add enterprise customers or last-mile assets to its portfolio.

Since Seacom’s 2018 debut into the enterprise sector, the company grew its enterprise reach in South Africa, Kenya and, more recently, Uganda.

“Across South Africa and Kenya, we are seeing great adoption of our fibre connectivity, as well as our private and outsourced network solutions. We have encountered enormous pent-up demand for high-speed connectivity and quality bandwidth at an affordable cost,” says Clatterbuck.