Subsea Cable From London To Africa Doubles Connectivity

Africans will now be able to enjoy higher speed Internet connections as the engineers have almost finished laying final section of subsea cable that extends from London to West Cape Town. The cable will double the Internet connectivity in various parts of Africa. The investors of this mega telecommunications project say that the primary aim of the project is to improve the broadband penetration in Africa. The total length of the cable is about 14000 KM and the total cost of project is $650 million. The total capacity of new cable is 5.12terabit/sec. #-Link-Snipped-#

The venture is owned by West Africa Cable System (WACS) which plans to open Internet access to rural areas. Currently only 10% of Africa's total popular has access to Internet. Africa's total Internet connectivity has been leveraged by previous undersea optic-fiber cable projects including SAT-3, SAFE SEACOM and EASSy. The new project will have more capacity than all these previous three projects combined. The undersea cable has landing points in 10 different countries along Africa's coast line.

South African mobile service provider MTN is a partner in this project. MTN's MD, Karel Pienaar believes that the new submarine cables will ensure better connectivity and gradually lead to mobile revolution in Africa. It's set to improve the lives of millions of African people.

Via: Y! News