The £322m Seacom cable, owned mainly by African investors, will stretch northwards from South Africa, making landfall at Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania and Kenya before splitting to tap into the international grid in France and India. Due to be operational by June 2009, it will be closely followed by two more finger-thin cables, including the ambitious Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), which will connect 21 countries on the eastern half of Africa to each other and to the world.