Slashdot Mirror
East Africa Gets High-Speed Internet Access Via Undersea Cable
Abel Mebratu writes with this excerpt from the BBC: "The first undersea cable to bring high-speed internet access to East Africa has gone live. The fiber-optic cable, operated by African-owned firm Seacom, connects South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique to Europe and Asia. The firm says the cable will help to boost the prospects of the region's industry and commerce. The cable — which is 17,000km long — took two years to lay and cost more than $650m."
That is outstanding! I have been waiting forever for some East African Pr0n!
There must be something wrong with the under sea cable industry (or at least theor press department) because whenever I read about them I have visions of outages and sabotage - is this cable gonna be a magnet for undersea pirates!?
Not everything in Africa is rural....
in telkom's coffin. Die monopoly, die.
Winkey shortcut mapping for 64bit windows. WinKeyPlus
According to TFA: "The cable was due to be launched in June but was delayed by pirate activity off the coast of Somalia."
I assume that by that they mean that the ships that lay the cable couldn't get to their destination for fear of being boarded. Can this become a new tactic for these pirates? Somehow damage the cable and then wait around for a ship to come and replace the cable segment?
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
I am posting to undo accidentally moderating the parent redundant. Should've been insightful. Africa is not just made up of villages in need of running water & sewerage.
My pics.
it sure can open some prosperity to the region but usually ends used mostly as spam pots and servers for evil things. I was surprised how many even internet caffees was loaded with trojans and viruses in africa. Even in 3-4* hotels. Spreading internet is fine, but just lay cable, resell and forget is not good for internet as a whole.
God's gift to chicks
They can bearly keep phone and power lines up in Africa because people salvage the metal from the lines.
Talking of phone/power lines has reminded me of the thing I saw on tv where some people in India or South America (I can't remember which, maybe both) get power - they just sling some wire over the power lines to catch some free juice!
I hope folks in East Africa will now be able to "VOIP" seriously. Their pay-as-you-go cellphone plans are insane at an average of US$0.15 per minute with extra fees for talking to a colleague on another network.
And yes, I know VOIP is not the savior or the world and its advantages will be to those who are mostly static, but it's a good start.
Of course you are right. The point I was trying to imply is that the fact that internet coming to the villages might be very good news, it is interesting to me how this emphasizes the differences between cities and the coutryside. In the article, this last paragraph cought my eye: "But our correspondent says it is not clear whether the internet revolution will reach the villages, many of which still struggle to access reliable electricity." If there are going to be investments in infrastructure, should they not include working on that too?
It cost $11.65/foot - probably a Monster Cable.
In 2000 37.2% of Africa's inhabitants were urban and it is expected to rise to 45.3% in 2015. From the wikipedia articale on African Urbanisation.
Thats still well down on much of the rest of the world and still means 2 in 3 people are presently making a living "from the primary occupations of farming, hunting & gathering, cattle nomadism, and fishing." So GP is probably right enough in his comment about the villages . . .
cost: $ 650
time to build: 2 years
getting cut by an anchor on day 2: pricless
Saharan desert lan cafes rejoice! Now #cc-power can grow to scam even MORE fat and lonely over 30-something githeads.
It's always easy to say "Shouldn't they ..." .... and always bullshit!
Who's "they"?
Why would they?
This cable was laid by a company. This is what "they" do for a living, apparently. You can hold them responsible for electricity and everything else that's "missing" in the villages, but it won't help a bit. "They" are not into electricity, and "they" have already invested their own money in fiber-optics, exactly like "they" wanted to.
Your generalization of "them" makes absolutely no sense at all.
Now I will be contacted by Kenyan princes needing to get money out!
With this cable, the e-mails about my unknown dead relatives leaving me money will get to me faster. I am very trustworthy, that is why I get so much money from helping to recover money.
Goody, I can make more money helping the people who desperately need my help in recovery money.
Fight Spammers!
As a resident of Kampala, Uganda I can say that this is a huge development here. East Africa is one of the last densely populated places on the planet that is entirely dependent on satellite for all data and voice communications. I currently pay about $50 a month for a connection that can burst up to 160kbps, averages at about 40kbps, and doesn't work about 30% of the time.
I for one, welcome faster Internet. Here in South Africa we're lagging so far behind the rest of the planet, its quite rediculous. I hear from my friends overseas that they're being upgraded to 50mb/s lines - usually for free as a part of their service provider upgrading their infrastructure - we're still struggling on under 1mb/s lines - and at a price that is so high (when you look at the cost of the service and the availability of income - the Internet isn't something that is cheap). Heck, even if you look at the price overseas and factor in the exchange rate, its still cheaper to access the Internet oversea's than it is here (and you get far more for your money's worth). *sigh*. If only our Government wasn't so corrupt and inefficient, maybe we wouldn't be so far behind the rest of the world.
It cost $38,235 per kilometer, perhaps a reasonable price.
Dear Sir / Madam
As you can see I now have internet access which makes me sending this important message to you much faster than letters.
I am a made-up chief of a tribe who due to circumstances has $26,000,000 which I would like to offer you 10% if you can help me move the money out of my country. With the new internet connection, you will find you will be paid much faster than ever, and I can spam more of the world faster than ever before.
[/sarcasm]
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Request for urgent business relationship
First, i must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction. This is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and 'top secret'. I am sure and have confidence of your ability and reliability to prosecute a transaction of this great magnitude involving a pending transaction requiring maximum confidence.
We are top official of the federal government contract review panel who are interested in importation of goods into our country with funds which are presently trapped in Nigeria. in order to commence this business we solicit your assistance to enable us transfer into your account the said trapped funds.
The source of this fund is as follows; during the last military regime here in Nigeria, the government officials set up companies and awarded themselves contracts which were grossly over-invoiced in various ministries. The present civilian government set up a contract review panel and we have identified a lot of inflated contract funds which are presently floating in the central bank of Nigeria ready for payment.
However, by virtue of our position as civil servants and members of this panel, we cannot acquire this money in our names. I have therefore, been delegated as a matter of trust by my colleagues of the panel to look for an overseas partner into whose account we would transfer the sum of us$21,320,000.00 (twenty one million, three hundred and twenty thousand u.s dollars). Hence we are writing you this letter. we have agreed to share the money thus; 1. 20% for the account owner 2. 70% for us (the officials) 3. 10% to be used in settling taxation and all local and foreign expenses. it is from the 70% that we wish to commence the importation business.
Please, note that this transaction is 100% safe and we hope to commence the transfer latest seven (7) banking days from the date of the receipt of the following information by tel/fax; 234-1-7740449, your company's signed, and stamped letterhead paper the above information will enable us write letters of claim and job description respectively. This way we will use your company's name to apply for payment and re-award the contract in your company's name.
We are looking forward to doing this business with you and solicit your confidentiality in this transaction. please acknowledge the receipt of this letter using the above tel/fax numbers. I will send you detailed information of this pending project when i have heard from you.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Clement Okon
Nigeria is in WEST africa, this is about EAST africa, and no it is not the same country.
It's not a safe assumption that everyone who isn't living in a large city is a farmer or fisher.
Indeed, they is without meaning unless there is a reference available to explain the term.
If you read the article you see that it is actually the kenyan government working to push the infrastructure further into the country, which is then appended with a question whether this will improve the connection for villages. The government is investing their money to further the infrastructure to improve connections for schools, a good thing, but apparently for a large part of the population that lacks even more basic things, notably electricity, there is no improvement.
So yes "they" (the kenyan government and probably the governments of South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique as well) should focus on some investments there as well.
Sir SoreHands,
First, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction, over a public forum. Me are top official of the South Eastern Valley Regional Bank of Nigeria. Me who are interested in the finance of importation of great goods of quality into our country with funds currently trapped in the North Western Hilly Regional Bank of Nigeria. We request your help to access states such trapped funds.
Doing the reign of my dearly departed step-father, various ministries have funneled money from the South Eastern Vally Regional Bank of Nigeria and South Northern Valley Regional Bank of Nigeria into the North Western Hilly Regional Bank of Nigeria. Since he dead, no one has access to the aforementioned funds.
We am offering to you a 20% service charges for assist of moving the funds into your personal savings account. UPON full receipt of 85% of funds from the aforementioned North Western Hilly Regional Bank of Nigeria LTD.
Please, note that the transaction is 110% safe and we hope to commence the transfer latest Nine (8) banking days from date of receipt. I am therefore cautiously and certainly looking am you for assistance.
Please provide all of your banking, social security, address, telephone numbers, and fax numbers to my email address for to start work on this transfer.
Yours cautiously and faithfully, but not greededly
Dr. Jacob Smith PhD MBA NBA NFL
CEO_nort_western_hilly_regional_bank_of_nigeria_ltd_corp@gmail.com
East Africa's technological growth, particularly in Kenya and Rwanda, has been hampered by ridiculously expensive bandwidth. My university had (still has, I believe) a 2Mb/s internet connection that was shared by a faculty and student community of about 5000. It was practically unusable. Call centers in Nairobi simply couldn't stay afloat even after being given tax incentives and having low wage bills(typical monthly salary for a call center worker is $400/month). Bandwidth prices have reduced by a factor of 4 and while its not expected that they will reach levels in Europe and America any time soon as ISPs and investors recoup their investment, the immediate benefits, lower latencies and higher reliability as compared to satellite, are already being felt. The are lots of bright people with great ideas that have been held back by the high cost of internet. With the arrival of the Seacom cable and TEAMS later on, I have no doubt that East Africa will become a major player in BPO, software development and research in the years to come.
You're an idiot. Please don't post here anymore.
Obviously not, I'm posting this from South Africa - Would've posted sooner but my lion got stuck behind a giraffe-pileup on the freeway.
There is a reason that Africa is considered a 'third world' country.
Since when is Africa a country?
That comment caused my parrot to fall off the poop deck in laughter whilst trying to add the wooden knobs to the Sea Monster cables, you insensitive clod!
May your sea-fairing, peg-legged ass be keel-hauled for this!...it was a good parrot, mate, and I'll miss it a lot!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Interesting/Humorous Video from May about it:- http://www.from-the-couch.com/post.cfm/title/seacom-conference
Nigeria is in West Africa you insensitive clod.
Under da sea
Under da sea
Darling it's better
Down where it's wetter
Take it from me
Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'
Under da sea
But in South Africa (which is one of the countries this cable goes to) the figure was 60% Urban population in 2007. Source: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/southafrica_statistics.html
Erik Dalén
What is your point, specifically?
He was replying to a post that suggested that Africans don't need high speed internet, because they don't have electricity yet in their "villages". He never said that majority of Africans live in cities, just that not ALL Africans live in villages.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
For interests sake, here are some photos of one of our smaller coastal cities - Note all the wild animals. We have a very healthy human/nature relationship
Well, it will be one day when we get our cable.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
Ha, I looked for a while, and actually expected the "Nigerian" scam. What surprised me was how far down it was before I found it!
With all that extra bandwidth, will there be an explosion in these types of offers?
So now the East Africans will have the ability to be virtual pirates too!
Ahh cummon, someone had to say it ;-)
Here's one for ya.
Quick geography lesson: in that "country" called Africa (where all the lions, tigers and bears live), there is this place called Nigeria, which happens to be on the left side of the map - that means West Africa, not East.
Way to sum up an entire continent of a billion people.
Whle we're indulging in stereotypes, fuck you... you ignorant American tool.
Since Sarah Palin said so!
Hi, I am Somalian prince.... ^@$%#@^ no carrier
The undersea cable is way better that 2 coconuts tied together with a vine.
Note: there are very few tigers in Africa. The native african tigers died out or left a very long time ago.
Nor are there bears. As an African, I'm quite aware of this. I was alluding to a Wizard of Oz quote and was just being facetious.
I live in San Jose, California. I can see Google, and other campuses from my house. I can not get High speed internet. I use a dial-up line. I am just a little bit up the hill, and the new development less than 200m down the hill all have high speed DSL, they also have comcast cable. All that does me little good, as nobody will connect me.
Maybe the telecom companies will have extra resources to connect me, now that they are finished with Africa.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
I currently pay about $50 a month for a connection that can burst up to 160kbps, averages at about 40kbps, and doesn't work about 30% of the time.
As another resident of Kampala, Uganda, I want to know where the you get your Internet from because that's the kind of connection I PRAY FOR EVERY NIGHT BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP.
Please excuse my rampant cynicism, but...
Where I work, we pay $1062/mo for a 256k/128k link with Datanet that's shared out to four sites (they claim we're on two bandwidth profilers and thus are getting 512/256 split between two links -- but I don't see that) which is up only 30% of the time on average -- though in all fairness the last two months have been OK.
And when I say OK, I'm only referring to the local link between us and our other sites around Kampala being stable, and not the Internet which is what we're actually paying all the money for.
It's not like we have anywhere to go, either. MTN is more expensive, Infocom is more expensive, Broadband Company doesn't yet peer at the IXP as far as I'm aware, UTL is more expensive, Africa Online is equal or more expensive, etc.
All of them do things like using private IP addresses in their public space, leave their VSAT customers modems exposed to the world with default admin/admin passwords, randomly block ports with no warning (like 25, for example), walk into the IXP and start ripping cables out in the middle of work-days with no notice, have zero customer service, charge you $1500 for a radio, try to force you to pre-pay three months before providing you service, don't give a shit when they don't provide service and you demand a refund, etc. (We've told Datanet we're post-paying and that's that, but this is not a normal procedure around here and they bitch about the fact that we do it all the time.) It took Infocom seven attempts to even get us a quote with the right items on it.
At my home I pay 245,000UGX ($120) for a 64k connection with MTN that is limited to 2GB of transfer -- when that runs out I have to "top-up" again. They don't determine my bandwidth usage at the cache, either. They determine it based on what comes in and out of my home radio. How's that fair? I'm PAYING for their VSAT link, not peered communications with other sites around Kampala (working from home, for example?) But I don't have a choice, because for what I need there's nowhere else to go short of paying double what I am now.
Furthermore, I was at the Seacom launch party yesterday at the Serena. Seacom came up and stated that they're selling bandwidth to the resellers at $50 - $150/meg depending on what you're buying (STM-1, STM-64, etc).
Yeah? Great! But then why did Infocom call me up a few days ago and tell me the "early-bird special" was $700/meg for a limited time only?
Meanwhile, when Seacom had the Ugandan ICT minister "cut the ribbon" yesterday, they asked him to "download anything he wished in order to get the fiber experience." After staring at the screen like a deer-in-headlights for a few seconds, he instructed his aide to download something for him.
This is the same guy that randomly announced that Uganda will ban ALL second-hand computers effective 2 months from today. That includes the P4's w/ 512mb ram, KB, monitor, and mouse sold for $70. These will be no more because Mr. I-don't-know-how-to-use-a-computer-ICT-minister wants to decimate half the computer industry here along with all tech related charities and re-raise the barrier to entry for this wonderful "landscape changing, poverty eliminating fiber connection." Why? He claims e-dumping, but that's obviously a bullshit cover for something else.
So while Tanzania and other countries were busy rolling out local fiber to their rural areas -- preparing for this event, we've got an ICT minister who barely knows how to use a computer and thus have nothing.
Oh, and I loved how Infocom (who provided the IT services for the event) dumped an
From TFA: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46103000/gif/_46103574_africa_cables_466.gif
Please print this out and color in where you think Nigeria is. Now look at the red line. If your colors touch the red line, then print the picture out and try again. Repeat until you realize what an idiot you are.
Interestingly, those emails often quote numbers listed in London England. Clearly with continental drift going the rate it is, who needs undersea cables?
Afaict undersea cables aren't pure fiber. There is a fiber core which carries the actual data but there are also layers of conductors (not sure if they use copper or some other metal) to carry high voltage power to the repeaters and in shallower waters a layer of metal armoring to reduce the risk of damage.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
For far to long we have had to deal with the slow speed. Now we get faster and better money and mail order bride scams. Horray. I'd say lets disconnect them all together.
Good morning sir, we have discovered a pigeon inside your bank account...
Actually, the Wikipedia article seems to be drawing its definition of urban dwellers as anyone who isn't one of those things.. still isn't the best definition though, you could have plenty of fishermen living in a city if it was on the coast.
which is totally what she said
Thinking of it, this is actually a smart move. Powering up your industrialized areas with Internet only makes those areas more productive, thereby generating more tax money which in turn can be used to help those villages.
Putting sewage, water and electricity into villages doesn't guarantee a ROI - it's just a sink-hole for money. Once you install those basic necessities they will only attract maintenance costs and shift focus away from survival and onto prospering. The people will focus more on getting their kids to school than just surviving.
All of this sounds like a good idea, yeah? But where will the money for all of this come from? The west? No. We already fucked up Africa pretty good, and we should stop interfering any more. They are more than capable of generating their own money, as witnessed by this undersea cable.
Any child who's played a strategy game knows this for a fact: Resources is the first thing you should make sure you have plenty of. Spending resources before you have them is dumb, and always results in failure.
The villagers can wait.
All the East coast of Africa has up to now been severeley lacking in possibilities of connectivity, and has had to make do with satellite links which are high latency and expensive (a DEDICATED satlink of 1Mb up and 1Mb down is in the ballpark range of around $10,000 per month, yes ten-THOUSAND per MONTH).
The West coast has had the SAT-3 cable for a while (2001), with a total capacity of 120Gbit/s (according to Wikipedia). Most of that lands and gets used up in SouthAfrica and in Nigeria. South Africa is in a decent situation because they have a country-wide distribution network that lets them hand off the network to most places. In Nigeria, however, try getting a connection on the SAT-3 outside of Lagos...
The problem throughout Africa is not only that of lack of backbone country-to-internet connectivity, but actually that of a decent distribution network within the country itself.
It's of little use to land a multi-gig cable at a certain place if then you don't have the infrastructure to re-distribute it. Maybe a chicken and egg situation... No backbone, so no point in building local distribution. No local distribution, so no point in building a backbone...
Nigeria is arguably the 2nd most developed country in Africa (After S.A.), and if you want a link outside of Lagos, your best bet is to go for a satlink. In fact, even INSIDE of Lagos, ISP's use sat-link bandwidth because of the instabilities of using Nitel to get to the SAT-3 landing station. So, if the 2nd most developed country has had a sub-link for 8 yrs and can't get the signal distributed, how long do you think it's going to take for this new cable to actually start making waves?
I'm betting it's mainly going to be used in the short term for South Africa (will drop prices for them!), and for the rest of the countries will serve to carry voice from the main hubs of the cellphone operators...
So to give an idea of how things happen in lesser developed countries:
-In Congo Democratic Republic, cellphone coverage is getting to be quite extensive (at least in the population centers), but if you make a phone call from Goma (eastern border) to the capital Kinshassa, your call goes over a satlink (no city to city connection). Even worse, if you call a friend/colleague also in Goma, but who happens to use a different operator, your call may actually make TWO hops: first sat-hop back to Kinshassa, then handed from one operator to the other, and then back over another sat-hop to Goma...
Think about it.
Not really. Fiber, not copper. It won't become a magnet.
But well... I don't see why pirates would harm the cables. Those aren't cheap but they aren't expensive enough to be worth the trouble.
Terrorists on the other hand could damage them but they don't want to. The point in terrorism isn't to cause significant damage. It is to make a small attack somewhere to provoke a massive (and often over the top) reaction from a large group.
When terrorists attacked WTC, a few people demolished two towers and killed some three thousand people. For that, USA attacked a country (two if you include the "Saddam helps terrorists too" as part of the same operation). That was enough to cause USA massive damage, both in it's imago worldwide and large financial losses due to the war. The whole subject also caused people to be more divided and so on... A few people managed to cause massive damage by provoking an over the top reaction.
I just can't see that stuff happening if someone cuts an undersea cable. Sure, it sucks to have limited Internet access for a while but it won't cause presidents to keep speeches on how the nation was attacked, it won't cause wars and so on....
Yet. When Internet becomes so vital that damaging undersea cables will cause wars, they will be protected in better ways. (Unless of course if you prefer the conspiracy theories, in which case you could believe that they won't be protected more efficiently, because our shadowy overlords want to cause wars)
...but it is rich in culture.
Wonderful! Soon, like the rest of web-connected Africa, their chief export will be SPAM. Now I'll be able to receive e-mail notification about winning the Ethiopian lottery! YES!
It's only appropriate we name the new scams (soon to be flooding our inboxes) after the proper east african legal code.
Protection from deprivation of property Section 16
Nor is it safe to assume that everyone who is living in a large city is somehow living any better than a farmer or a fisher.
... then the OP is describing a working environment that borders on the intolerable. Words like rapacious, incompetent, etc. come to mind. That said, getting into competition with these folk is not as easy as one might think. I have to believe that the fat profit margins being described are being siphoned off to various bank accounts and that a competent ISP with growing market share might find itself suddenly shut down unless similar protection payments are made. If that sounds cynical, I apologize, but graft continues to be an endemic (with few exceptions) problem in Africa per various organizations that measure graft.
The fact that this link is live, will have no bearing on internet in the countryside... The problem is the local infrastructures in those remote "village" locations.
Btw, I spent 16 years in South Africa, I grew up there, there are plenty of remote areas that have no real infrastructure (that includes sewage, running water, power, telephone etc etc), and considering South Africa is probably the most advanced of the countries on the Southern African continent, who knows how much worse it is in the other countries.
That all being said, there is alot of cellular coverage across the entire continent, so its not completely cut off. The other problem of course are the local telco monopolies, Telkom in South Africa is not exactly consumer friendly.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Whether or not he is an idiot is irrelevant to his comment. The fact of the matter is he is correct. There is a huge problem in South Africa where people are literally cutting down high voltage and low voltage (phone) cables and selling them for scrap (and yes, many people die cutting those lines). On top of that, they do like to steal power, especially in townships where you can see ad hoc cabling running from nominal voltage transmission lines (220v60Hz) to the shacks they live in.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
The "country" called Europe is with you (assuming you're from the African continent) on this. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Way to sum up an entire continent of a billion people.
Whle we're indulging in stereotypes, fuck you... you ignorant American tool.
I'm sure you're ready to point instantly, on a blank map, to any state in the USA I care to pick. Quick, where's Colorado?!?
Yeah, right. Knowing where any particular African nation is doesn't benefit anyone but schoolkids facing a geography test and businessmen working a deal there. Imagining that we're going to waste any energy keeping an African map memorized, when the particulars are irrelevant to our daily lives, is rather immodest.
I don't expect you to memorize the particulars of my continent unless that knowledge would hold practical value for you. I'm pretty sure you haven't done so, either, but that doesn't stop you from copping an attitude.
A foreigner lecturing an American about how ignorant we all are is as common and tasteful as a fly on sh*t. Funny thing is if you start interrogating them on the United States, they'll start looking pretty dumb pretty fast, while being utterly sure of every answer they give.
I don't care where on the African continent Nigeria is, because it's trivial knowledge that does me no good. You can't point out Vermont on a map for the same reason.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Damn giraffes never use their signals, they should all have their licenses revoked.
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
Because we ALL know that internet traffic is geographically routed and exclusive, right?
I mean, packets from West Africa *never* go over lines from East Africa, and the installation of PHAT bandwidth to E. Africa certainly wouldn't reduce congestion on the rest of the system, yes?
Look, I understand that my point is specious - but it's entirely possible these points were made in humor (and thus not really worth the hypersensitive response), or even if not, they may have a reasonable basis in fact (and thus not arguable).
While you're criticizing someone's ignorant stereotyping, perhaps you might want to check your own baggage first?
-Styopa
I resemble this remark.
it is a NICE tool! Better than yours at least.
I didn't know spanners were a protected class
Sorry, but Drew Carey beat her to it
Goodbye, Bangalore, hello Nairobi?
Nigeria is totally on the Right side.
You bigotted Northern-Hemispherist you always putting the North at the top, you think you're so special.
Actually that's 240V 50Hz...
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
Whoosh!
There is no need to put quotes around country when referring to Europe (unless you do the same with the U.S.) as there is indeed a country called Europe now (European Union). Most of those who live in this new country don't realize that their former country has become a mere state in the larger country, but it has indeed happened and is probably irreversible.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
As ever, the countries with access to water get the best opportunities. This was/is true for the trade of physical goods, a bit weird to see it holds for data as well.
while I totally support your argument, using wikipedia as a "neutral source" or even a credible one, is a laughable notion at best.
You thought Indian wages were low...
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Any child who's played a strategy game knows this for a fact: Resources is the first thing you should make sure you have plenty of.
Or any adult who's played Starcraft.
so in other words, you were lion about it.
You're a fucking idiot.
It used to be that if you looked at a map of undersea cables, West Africa was linked up with the lights going out at South Africa. The cables on the other side stopped in the Mideast. The only dark stretch was East Africa.
for now, i think it is time to say "Hurray!!"
Africa's a big place. This will help conditions, there.
But if they really want conditions to improve (like, in having available food) they're gonna have to get some freedoms, continent-wide.
Some countries there are making marked progress. Freedom, work, business, food, and happiness.
Others tolerate (or are powerless to) warlords that steal most-if-not-all the aid that comes in.
Perhaps having the internet, at least on the eastern side, more atrocities will get out, and more freedom-is-better propoganda can get in.
I can't think of any collection of people that need peace, work, and happiness more than the scattered tribes of Africa. Let's all wish them well.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Let alone earn a decent return on investment. Africa is such an economic basket case I can't see them actually recovering that investment, unless of course they can tax the offshore bank account of the dictators running nearly all of Africa.
There is a nice video documentary about the project: http://www.seacom.mu/videos/seacomDocumentary.wmv
They also tend to rubberneck....
The lions though they are notorious for tail-gating :(
Any East African /.'ers out there yet?
And I don't think third world means what you think it means.
I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.
More intertubes for me! :)