Even if 50% (60 Gb/s) of SAT3 is in use, it is still a very interesting statistic given the apparent demand. It suggests a few things to me:

One, demand for international bandwidth in Africa is still fairly elastic because it is not uniformly perceived as a necessity and because it represents too high a proportion of the average individual’s income when translated into a street price.

Two, national backbone and local-loop infrastructure is still largely underdeveloped. Obviously African countries are now racing to correct that. A case where “build it and they will come” actually turns out to be true.

Finally, it shows that bell-headed incumbent telcos, such as make up the ownership of SAT3, still don’t believe in or get the economics of abundance. They should. There is no more telling indicator than the fact that increasingly the most reliable indicator of profitability for mobile operators is the number of subscribers rather than Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), a scarcity indicator.

As an interesting aside, I see that France Telecom, a major investor in SAT3, are being taught a similar lesson closer to home. :-)