Africa is now connected to the World fibre optically thanks to the Seacom Under Sea Fibre Optic Cable launch that took place on 23rd July, 2009 at Neotel’s South Africa's new head office and data centre facility in Midrand, Johannesburg. The fibre optic cable will transmit data at 1.28 Tera bytes per second(Tbps) and is over 15,000 km long connecting Africa with Europe and India via the East African Coast.Undoubtedly Africa will soon experience internet connectivity in a way never experienced before!I was pleasantly surprised to read the Seacom blog and to see the launch photos at the Seacom Facebook fan page and to add on it all Seacom has a twitter account .That just goes to illustrate how serious Africa is in its quest to narrow the digital divide and harness the power of the internet. However while the infrastructure is now available issues of cost ,accessibility, public awareness and education need to be looked at by all the partner states so that the connectivity is not in vain!
I am pretty excited at the opportunities this creates, congrats to Africa for this giant leap!
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