An undersea cable plugging east Africa into high speed Internet access went live Thursday, providing an alternative to expensive satellite connections.
The cable links southern Africa to Europe and Asia.

SEACOM, the cable provider company, opened its 17,000 kilometer submarine cable, capable of 1.28 terabytes per second, allowing the region true connectivity.

Most Africans rely on expensive and slow satellite connections, which make the use of applications such as YouTube and Facebook extremely trying.

“This is going to reduce the cost of doing business in Africa, within Africa and with international parties” said Suveer Ramdhani, SEACOM spokesman in South Africa.

Source: CNN