These include branching units and shore-ends that will direct data traffic to landing stations across eastern and southern Africa. All cable landing stations and terminals have also been completed, and are currently operational, itnewsafrica.com has reported.

Testing of the system has commenced, under the control of the SEACOM’s central Network Operations Centre based in Pune, India.

Brian Herlihy, SEACOM CEO said: “The team has made tremendous progress over the past couple of months and we are truly excited to finally have the finish line in-sight.

“With the system substantially completed and testing underway, we are one step closer to delivering on our commitment and become the first project to provide eastern and southern African retail carriers with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth.”

The undersea cable system will connect southern and eastern Africa to the rest of the world via a myriad of routes across all major European hubs and onwards to North America, the Middle East and Asia. SEACOM has worked with government, private investors and entrepreneurs to help facilitate new telecom infrastructure and content development businesses.

In a little over a month operations will commence, and southern and eastern Africa will finally get truly connected to international broadband networks. It is hoped that more readily available bandwidth will result in lower telecommunications costs across the continent, and provide new opportunities for businesses reliant on ICT infrastructure.