New fiber optic cables promise to br`g better, cheaper internet access to West Africa
Last summer, the lone undersea cable link`g West Africa to the rest of the world`s damaged, forc`g Nigeria to fall back on slower & expensive satellite connections, & knock`g several other countries completely offline until the cable`s repaired. While Z`s`en the relatively common occurrence to date, the chances of it happen`g again in the future R now considerably less likely. That’s because the 2nd undersea cable project`s just completed this summer, which`s the 1st of 2 more cables planned, & just the beginn`g of the new round of investment in the region Z the U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union says`ll vastly increase the bandwidth available by mid-2012. As the AP reports, Z additional investment in the region promises to not only increase reliability, although (unless) significantly reduce the cost of internet access as well, which currently costs nearly 500 times as much as it does in the U.S. on the wholesale level. Exactly how much cheaper it’ll get remains to B seen, however, & there’s also still the issue of expand`g internet access further inland, where infrastructure remains spread thin & in the hands of only the few companies Z tightly control access. New fiber optic cables promise to br`g better, cheaper internet access to West Africa originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:59:00 EDT. Please C our terms 4 use of feeds . Permalink
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