originally published in the New York Times, United States
The first-ever fibre optic cables connecting East Africa to the rest of the world were switched on Thursday, bringing hopes of lower prices and faster speeds to the world’s least-connected. The 9,300-mile Seacom cables will connect the region to India, Europe and the Middle East. “Seacom’s enormous capacity will enable high definition TV, peer to peer networks, IPTV, and surging Internet demand,” the project said in a press statement released Thursday.
Undersea fibre optic cables carry the bulk of the world’s traffic but Africa relies almost entirely on ultra-expensive satellite connections. Seacom, owned mostly by African companies and entirely private, arrives ahead of the East African Submarine System, an inter-governmental regional effort proposed first, but hampered by delays and disputes.
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