SAT-3/WASC - Bandwidth Costs

Bandwidth Costs

Prices for SAT-3 bandwidth in the African countries it serves are high (US$4,500–12,000 per Mbit/s per month, over 50 times greater than bandwidth prices in the U.S.) in large part because operators have monopoly control of access. The lowest rates occur in Ghana, where the Ghana Internet Service Providers Association (GISPA) organized a two-year negotiation with and court fight against Ghana Telecom. SEACOM president Brian Herlihy states that the owners of the SAT-3 cable have cut prices by 50% since the 2007 announcement of Seacom, in order to compete with the arrival of Seacom in East Africa.