Analysts always anticipated the consolidation of some of Africa's undersea cable projects, but the melding of Uhurunet with Infraco's West African Cable System (WACS) still came as a surprise.

In September, state-owned Broadband Infraco signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Nepad eAfrica Commission that will see the latter's $1.4 billion Uhurunet undersea cable become part of Infraco's WACS undersea cable project.

According to Infraco chairman Andrew Mthembu, the aim of the MOU is to consolidate government's undersea cable initiatives. "It didn't make sense to have two government initiatives pulling in different directions," he says.