African Internet Boom

Africa is finally getting up to speed with cable Internet connectivity, a sigh of relief from expensive satellite connections. Faster than you can say dense division wave multiplexing, an undersea cable will connect continental Africans with global e-commerce and the information superhighway. The cable links southern Africa to Europe and Asia.

Provider SEACOM lit its 17,000 kilometer submarine cable, capable of 1.28 terabytes per second, allowing the region true connectivity. Gone will be the lines around the block for an hour to load a Youtube. New business will ’springbok” from the region, domainers anticipate.

SEACOM, privately funded/75% African-owned, will provide retail carriers with open source access to inexpensive bandwidth. The 3 year project, providing landing stations at South Africa, Kenya, Madagascar and other points along the east coast of Africa, has had Africans holding their breath for connectivity with the rest of the world.