Mombasa, Kenya, 23rd July 2009 1. Various shots of ships on the ocean Nairobi, Kenya, 23rd July 2009 2. Various of people laying Internet connection cables Mombasa, Kenya, 23rd July 2009 3. Wide of people in hall 4. Wide of hall 5. Various of people browsing speedy internet 6. Set up shot of JP de Lev 7. SOUNDBITE (English) JP de Lev, Vice President SEACOM Kenya: "Today, we have the launching of the sea submarine cable, which is a cable going all the way from South Africa to London. It is fibre optical, a submarine fibre optical cable. We have been working on this cable for the last three years, this has been accomplished today and what you see today is in fact the celebration and the launching and the operation of this cable in Kenya". 8. Wide of man browsing at the launch hall 9. Various of Harrison Ogada browsing internet UPSOUND (English) "How fast is this thing?" 10. SOUNDBITE (English) Harrison Ogada, Research Scientist Marine Resource: "This is very fast, for example when I click on button the way I have just done, you get CNN Live, and you can see it is very fast. And this video access is going to be very good for us in this country. You can see now, I'm watching CNN I can see I'm getting news updates on one of the best in America. And you can never get this before, you could never get this from the conventional connection that we have in the country." 11. Wide of Mombasa city 12. Various of people in a cyber cafe 13. SOUNDBITE (English) Mambo Mindila owner of the cyber cafe: "When the fibre comes, I think the speed will go up and we hope the prices will come down as they tell you. That way we will be okay with that." 14. Set up shots of Peter Musanga 15. SOUNDBITE (English) Peter Musanga, Student Strathmore University: "I think it is going to make Internet costs for me quite cheaper and considering the speed of the internet is quite slow in cyber cafes and that makes it very expensive that is going to enable me to get more access to more information" 16. Various of people walking in the streets of Mombasa LEAD IN After years of slow internet, Kenya is finally able to get a fast broadband connection. The breakthrough is made possible by submarine fibre optic internet cables, that connect South Africa to Europe. STORYLINE A hidden treasure is buried under this idyllic sea-scape - fibre optic internet cables. They will give Kenya a very quick internet connection. Streaming video or calling over the internet is something taken for granted in the West, but in eastern Africa it has not been possible because of slow and patchy internet services. All this time, as the rest of the world has explored different uses for broadband, eastern Africa has remained behind. The Indian Ocean's eastern African seabed was the only one in the world without a submarine fiber-optic cable, forcing the region to rely heavily on limited and expensive satellite links. This has now changed. The first undersea cable ready for service is SEACOM, which officially began working in five countries on Thursday (23rd July), bringing broadband to eastern Africa for the first time. SEACOM's a cable system connects Djibouti, Madagascar, Mozambique, Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania to India and Europe, and cost up to $700 million US dollars. The 17,000-kilometre (10,625-mile) cable allows information to be sent at speeds of 1.28 terabytes per second, fast enough to stream high-definition video. SEACOM celebrated the internet revolution with a launch party on Thursday (July 23). Journalists were able to stream video and audio clips from the venue and test the new connection. The start of these broadband services will make fast Internet cheaper and more accessible in Kenya. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/732b357fd2b4c31d1048d00580d0dbed Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork

• published: 23 Jul 2015
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