The cost of telecommunications and Internet connectivity is set to be slashed soon when the 17 000km SEACOM fibre-optic undersea cable comes online next month.

The cable landed quietly in Mtunzini, on the Zululand coast, in March and is on track to go live on June 27.

Speaking at its Mtunzini Cable Station near Empangeni yesterday, SEACOM CEO Brian Herlihy said that much progress had been made in the groundbreaking $650 million project.

"With the system substantially completed and testing already under way, we are one step closer to delivering on our commitment. SEACOM is set to become the first project to provide eastern and southern Africa with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth.

"This is going to have a huge catalytic economic impact on South Africa and, more especially, East Africa, connecting several countries in the region to the rest of the world via hubs in London and India.

"In about a month, southern and eastern Africa will finally get truly connected to international broadband networks.

"Readily available bandwidth will result in lower telecommunications costs and new opportunities across many sectors, in particular the call centre and business process outsourcing industries.

"This means that South Africa will finally be part of the high speed internet highway with true broadband capabilities - such as HDTV and multi-media over the internet - in the near future."

Herlihy said critical portions of the subsea cable and land-based infrastructure had been completed on schedule.

SEACOM would offer wholesale internet bandwidth - several times the current availability - to companies such as Neotel, Telkom, MTN and Vodacom.