Tuesday 4 August 2009

South and East Africa get faster telecommunications links

The monthly e-newsletter of the Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT )has announced the following good news: "The much-anticipated Seacom undersea fibre optic cable was finally launched on 23 July 2009 during simultaneous events in South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique. The 17 000 kilometere, 1,28 Terabytes per second (Tb/s) cable links south and east Africa to global telecommunications networks via India and Europe. It represents the dawn of a new era for broadband connectivity in Africa with the potential to significantly impact on the future growth and development of the continent."

While much remains to be done in terms of regulatory and policy issues, this is a major step forward for all consituencies able to benefit from online access to global information, including of course research findings available to all academic communties through open access resources.

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