In what has been hailed as the most significant change in the history of information technology on the continent, South Africans look set to benefit from faster and cheaper internet towards the end of the month.

Costing more than R5-billion and spanning several continents, the 15 000km fibre-optic cable that runs under water from France via East Africa to Mtunzini on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast, promises lower broadband costs and faster data transfer.

"It is the most important change in the history of data in the country," said Steven Ambrose, an internet expert and telecommunications analyst.

"The cable brings dramatic change in South Africans' ability to access international bandwidth, making the transfer of data up to 40 times faster than at present."

The Seacom cable system will give African retail carriers equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth, removing the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting eastern and southern African economic growth.

And the increased capacity of the cable compared to existing infrastructure will enable greater availability and lower cost of high-demand services such as high-definition television (HDTV), peer-to-peer networks and internet protocol television.

Neotel, the country's second national operator, which has invested in the project, will start using the cable during the tail-end of the Confederations Cup, which starts today, and expects it to be fully operational by the 2010 World Cup, when the demand for international bandwidth is expected to increase dramatically for HDTV broadcasting. The cable, built by Seacom, an Africa-based company, will link southern and eastern Africa with India and Europe, bringing down connectivity costs on the continent.

Already, MTN has a partnership with Neotel to build a R2-billion national long-distance fibre-optic network.

And, in another move destined to boost internet connectivity in Africa, the West Africa Cable System (WACS) has brought together several countries and some of the world's biggest telecommunications players in an effort to provide state-of-the-art technology.

MTN, Neotel, Telkom and Vodacom will be involved in the construction and maintenance of the WACS cable, which will cost about R5bn.

In addition, several other undersea cable operators are set to ensure that the total international bandwidth capacity coming into Africa grows more than a hundredfold by the end of 2011.

Ambrose said consumers may also see a price reduction soon as the competition between internet service providers gathered momentum. "The potential is huge; this is dramatic."

Arthur Goldstuck, the managing director of World Wide Worx internet research consultancy, said the fibre-optic cable meant data would move more rapidly, giving consumers access at a faster pace, while in the corporate world, usage would be transformed.