Eassy on track

he $260-million East Africa Submarine Cable System (Eassy) linking Kenya with 21 nations is expected to be operational by next July, reports Bloomberg.

The link, with the capacity to carry 1.4 terabytes of data per second, is expected to slash telecommunications costs by as much as 80% and make connection speeds as much as five times faster, says Chris Wood, CEO of the West Indian Ocean Cable Company.

Eassy will first be installed in Mozambique, followed by the construction of landing stations at ports in Kenya and neighbouring Sudan.

Somali pirates are disrupting the laying of the $600-million Seacom cable that promises to end East Africa's isolation as the last region of the world not connected to the global broadband network, says SomalilandPress.

The cable will not come into service until 23 July, nearly a month later than planned, due to pirate activity off the coast of Somalia delaying the work of its cable-laying contractor.

Tyco Telecommunications, the contractor and part of Tyco Electronics, was forced to suspend its cable-laying around the horn of Africa so it could revise its security plans and beef up protection for its ships following the latest surge in pirate activity.

Google has rolled out a suite of mobile applications for SMS users in Uganda, according to InformationWeek.

Africa has the world's highest mobile phone growth rate, states the International Telecommunications Union, and mobile phone penetration there is six times higher than Internet penetration.

In light of this, Google released SMS Search to allow Ugandan mobile phone users access to information related to current events, sports, stocks, flights, and word definitions, while Google SMS Trader allows users to sell goods and services through an SMS-driven marketplace.