A high capacity submarine cable system linking southern Africa with Europe landed at its final destination in Cape Town. The West African Cable System (WACS), a 14,000km, 5.1Tbps system was brought ashore at Yzerfontein in the Western Cape and will both complement and compete with the 340Gbps Sat-3 system that went into service in the region in 2002.

WACS backers include South African state-owned Telkom, MTN, Vodacom and second national operator (SNO) Neotel. MTN claims to be the biggest single investor in the project, contributing USD 90 million to the USD 650 million venture. The cable system is the first of two high-capacity links that will come online in the region over the next two years; WACS is expected to be ready commercially in early 2012 while the Africa Coast to Europe system (ACE), backed by France Telecom is expected later that year.

WACS links southern Africa with London and is expected to increase broadband capacity in South Africa by 500Gbps. The new link is the latest in a series of submarine cables that hold the promise of an Internet explosion for Africa, where only 9.6 percent of people are web users, compared to 65 percent of Europeans.