There has been a good deal of buzz around the African undersea cable map that Steve Song has been steadily creating and posted on his great blog, Many Possibilities. It's cool and you should go check it out. Erik agrees.

This is all well and good for these main cables that exist or will exist. They're a bit easier to find as they're gigantic and massive backbones to the continent. But what happens when they connect to land and the connection needs to come in to the interior? That information is harder to find and there are a lot of projects that start, stop, and often never get attention. I felt lucky to come across the info for my previous article in DR Congo.

Steve is apparently not content to rest on his laurels and created a Google Map that anyone can edit to trace the routes of the African internet landlines. If you take a look at it, it's pretty scarce on info at the moment. I mapped what I know of the DR Congo line and with your help, more lines will slowly become known.

I know that Google Maps are not terribly friendly for those on low bandwidth, but if you're in a country and you know of the terrestrial fiber lines, add them to the map. I think it's a very cool project that could really be something down the line and help those in development to know where to focus if their work absolutely must have internet or if they want to work somewhere where it needs to be fostered.