Mauritius based private equity venture Seacom has started the construction of a fiber optic cable that will link southern and east Africa with India and Europe.
The $650 million project covers more than 15,000 kilometers to link South Africa to India and France through Mozambique, Madagascar, Kenya and Tanzania. It is expected to provide first broadband access to countries in East Africa, which are currently using satellite connections.
In a similar project, NEPAD e-Africa Commission signed a deal with an American firm 5-P Holdings in November 2007 for the construction of an undersea submarine cable to link every country in Africa with the outside world.
According to Livemint, Stephen Laufer, a spokesman for the Seacom project said: The link will provide an enormous one-point-two-eight Terrabytes per second of broadband capacity.
This is a joint project between African investors and US telecommunications development company Herakles Telecom. The cable will be ready to serve southern and eastern Africa from 2009 onwards.
