Despite the price cuts, African governments are pushing for further reductions in connectivity prices. Governments in the region hope to use the new broadband capacity to transform their economies as land-based infrastructure is being laid to bring capacity in from the coast, an especially important project for landlocked countries including Zambia and Zimbabwe.

WACS is designed to enable seamless connectivity to Europe and will be the first cable to have landing stations in Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Republic of Congo and Togo.

"The capacity of the entire system is 5.12Tbps. The system is designed to support present and future Internet, e-commerce, video, data and voice services," said Casper Chihaka, managing executive of Telkom Wholesale Services.

Telkom was responsible for landing the cable in South Africa.

In addition to cable systems that have already been launched, there is more competition on the horizon. The 17,000-km Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) cable is expected to be launched by mid-2012. ACE would present the opportunity for the first international submarine cable to land in some West African countries including Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Mauritania, Sao Tome and Principe, and Sierra Leone.