Photo of junction for East Africa's (formerly) sole internet connection.

February 8, 2013 2:18 AM

Sometime in the last few years, I saw a photo of a very humble-looking cable sticking out of an old stone wall. It turned out to supposedly be the point where the only hard line connection to the wider internet entered East Africa. Can anyone help me find this photo, or info on which cable it was?
posted by EnormousTalkingOnion to computers & internet (6 answers total)

Is it this cable?

Found by Google Image searching "east africa internet cable".
posted by katrielalex at 3:42 AM on February 8

And context on TechCrunch.
posted by katrielalex at 3:45 AM on February 8 [1 favorite]

Thanks, that's it. I googled "east africa only internet cable," "junction for internet east africa," "east africa internet wall socket," "only internet access cable ethiopia," etc. but like an idiot I didn't try image search...
posted by EnormousTalkingOnion at 5:11 AM on February 8

Incidentally I feel I should agree that this is awesome and it's really cool to think about how this internet thing that we treat as a decentralised cloud actually runs through bits of the real world.

A related topic, previously.
posted by katrielalex at 6:20 AM on February 8

"Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet is a recent look at the physical infrastructure that makes up this series of tubes.
posted by rmd1023 at 7:30 AM on February 8

And I'll just add this here, as it is excellent:

Mother Earth Mother Board : The hacker tourist ventures forth across the wide and wondrous meatspace of three continents, chronicling the laying of the longest wire on Earth.
posted by procrastination at 9:56 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]