The second major fibre-optic cable linking Africa's east coast to the world was completed Tuesday, the largest shareholder in the project has announced.

The West Indian Ocean Cable Company said it planned to connect its first customers to the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) from July.

The "final splice" joining two segments of the cable to complete the network was made on board the cable-laying ship, Ile de Batz, in the Indian Ocean early Tuesday morning, East African time, the company said.

Its chief commercial officer, James Wekesa, said in a statement that the network would offer "affordable high-speed connectivity into other parts of the continent, and direct access to key internet exchange points in Europe and North America."

He said international carriers would gain "a reliable high-capacity route into parts of Africa that have previously been seen as difficult-to-reach locations."

Claimed Ryan Sher, who chairs the network's technical working group: "A key difference between EASSy and other sub-Saharan systems is that our system will deliver connectivity to Europe via a direct route through the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea...

"EASSy will be the first east coast system to connect directly to Europe, minimising the time taken for traffic from Africa to reach the key internet peering points in Europe and North America, and vice-versa... Other east coast systems use longer routes via the Middle East or India."