East African countries have been seeking an optical fibre communications instead of the existing cable networks in the Indian Ocean to improve inter- telecommunication.

Officials and experts with communication sectors from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa and Djibouti are here attending a conference of the east African sub-marine cable systems to discuss the multi-billion projects using the up-to-date digital broadband technology to connect African countries, local newspaper Daily News reported on Tuesday.

Compared with the existing narrowband cable networks, experts say the fibre telecommunications will improve the internet access speed by hundreds of times and reduce the region's dependence on satellite for long distance communications.

Tanzania later last year debuted the optical fibre networks on its mainland which were estimated to cost almost 200 million US dollars

Kenya and Uganda also started fibre telecommunication constructions.

Source: Xinhua