Ugandans expect more price reductions in the cost of internet, following the launch of the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) in South Africa last week.
EASSy, like the Seacom cable, is an undersea high speed internet cable system connecting 21 African countries from Southern Africa to the north and the rest of the world.

The cable went into commercial service at the end of July but was announced operational last Thursday, according to the EASSy Consortium, composed of the MTN Group, France Telecom, Uganda Telecom and Bharti Airtel.

The government, in partnership with some leading multi-national technology companies and non-governmental organisations, will in the next two years role out a computer-based teaching programme in public schools to help bridge the shortfall of 85,000 teachers.

Titled Tanzania Beyond Tomorrow, the initiative is intended to supplement the long-term government recruitment of teachers to curb the huge shortage of the personnel in primary and secondary schools.

The partners to work on the project with the Tanzanian Government through the Ministry of Education are the world’s leading high technology companies, Accenture, Intel, Microsoft and Cisco.

Kenya's biggest tTelecommunication solutions firm Safaricom has disclosed that it will seek permission from the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) to start testing 4G technology in the country.

Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Michael Joseph said following the success of 3G on which they have an estimated 3.5 million customers, they intend to roll out the new service which will enable their customers to enjoy faster internet speeds and downloads.

“The reason why we are looking at testing 4G is that it is a natural growth from 3G as it gives you more bandwidth and more speeds. There’s demand out there but the challenge now is getting the price of a 3G phone down to come down,” he said.

The third East Africa Submarine Cable System EASSy arrived at the Kenyan coast this Sunday says Information and Communications Minister Samuel Poghisio.

In December, the largest investor in EASSY, West Indian Ocean Cable Company had anticipated the landing of the 1.4 terabyte per second cable to be in June 2010. Mr Poghisio said the cable system was expected to raise the bandwidth capacity although activation and utilization of the first two cables (SEACOM and TEAMS) had not been fully implemented.

The Communications minister said Kenyans were yet to fully utilize the opportunities presented by the landing of the sea cables.