A new 14000km, ultra-high capacity (5 terabits per second) fibre-optic submarine cable made landfall on the west coast of Western Cape... after landing stops in 13 countries, 11 of which are on Africa's west coast. The cable is the first to be funded by all South Africa's major telecoms operators... The “open access model” employed for WACS (West African Cable System) is a system that allows all the funders or telecoms operators that own bandwidth capacity on the cable to have equal access, despite them not having landing sites of their own...."

The cost of mobile phone use in South Africa is set to decline. Current rates are higher than other developing countries: the South Africa Node writes that “mobile operators [are] charging more per minute at peak times for their mobile termination or interconnection fee than countries like South Korea, Malaysia and India.” However, “an agreement has been reached with mobile operators to cut interconnection fees, with a further proposed cut in termination rates for mobile and fixed line operators over the next three years.

Africa suffers a wide technology gap. Most noticeably for anyone who spends time on the continent in its tragically slow internet. The internet in Africa runs on a tiny fraction of the MB from the rest of the world. Plans to have fiber-optic cables connect Africa to the rest of the world have been in the works for a few years. One is planned to come to Somaliland.