Seacom will more than double the capacity on its fibre-optic network by the end of August as demand for broadband grows across Africa.

The continent’s first broadband submarine cable system operator will add 1.7Tbit/s to its network, bringing its total capacity to 3.2Tbit/s along Africa’s eastern and Ssuthern coasts, said Tonny Tugee, Seacom’s GM for East and North East Africa.

The company will spend US$10-million (about R172-million) from internal resources to upgrade the 17 000km submarine cable and terrestrial network, Tugee said in an interview.

With the Internet penetration rate at 40% on the continent, “there is still a lot of work to connect over 800 million Africans into the grid and to bring them online”, he said. 

Source: Tech Central