Boosting SA broadband: New subsea cable will connect Cape Town to Brazil

JOHANNESBURG — The advent of undersea broadband cables such as Seacom on Africa’s eastern coastline has had a major impact on the quality and pricing of faster internet broadband in South Africa. More cables, such as WACS, have also boosted the country’s ability to connect to the world. But while there are cables running up the eastern and western coastlines of the continent, there still isn’t a cable running east to west. A US company called Seaborn Networks plans to fix that by building the first-ever subsea cable between Cape Town and Brazil. The cable will then ultimately connect to the US, shaving off milliseconds from South Africa’s internet latency speed. Here’s Seaborn COO Andy Bax who told me more about this project. – Gareth van Zyl