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Johannesburg - A new undersea telecommunications cable has landed in South Africa, investors announced on Tuesday, saying the link would double the broadband capacity of South Africa.
The 14 000km West Africa Cable System (WACS) fibre optic line links the Western Cape to London, giving African Internet providers a direct connection to servers in Europe, its sponsors said.
The $650m system will increase South Africa’s broadband
capacity by more than 500 gigabits per second, said Telkom, one of the 12
companies in the project.
That is the equivalent of more than 500 complete DVD downloads per second, a Telkom spokesperson said.
The cable also has landing points in 10 other countries
along Africa’s western coast and promises to boost the bandwidth of the world’s
least-connected region, investors said.
“Africa has until now been a cyclist on the information
superhighway,” said Karel Pienaar, managing director MTN, another partner in
the project.
“We sincerely believe that the commercialisation of WACS and
other submarine cables will set the stage for a mobile revolution that will
enhance the quality of life for millions of people across the continent,”
Pienaar said.
WACS is the latest in a series of submarine cables that hold
the promise of an internet boom for Africa, where only 9.6% of people are web
users, compared to 65% of Europeans.
The capacity of Africa’s fibre optic cable connections has
expanded dramatically since 2009, when the continent relied mainly on slower
satellite connections.
But the increased capacity has often been slow to reach residents, especially in rural areas, as service providers have lagged behind in building “last mile” infrastructure - the wires, cables and towers needed to get data to and from the end user.
