Officialsare now talking about layingfibre-opticcables to connectdirectly to Latin AmericaandEuropeso thatBrazil'sinternationalonlinetrafficbypassesthe United States.
The business of laying fibre-optic cable, both terrestrially and under the sea, used to be the preserve of incumbent telecoms operators sharing the burden of capital-intensive projects.
The telecoms companies lost fortunes on laying that fibre (indeed, several, including such as Global Crossing, went resoundingly bust for billions in doing so).
Since 1997, Telkom has cut the time it takes to repair faults, reduced international charges by 50% in real terms, and started laying a massive undersea fibre-optic cable to carry data between Africa and Europe.