A new high-speed undersea cable connecting East Africa with the rest of the world is poised¹ to go live, Kenya's top internet official has told the BBC.

肯尼亚顶级因特网官员向BBC透露，一条新的连接东非和世界的高速海底电缆将随时准备开通。

The launch of the government-backed East African Marine³ System (Teams) comes as providers face a backlash（反斜线，间隙） over slow connection speeds and high prices.

Internet providers have increased speeds and lowered costs since the Seacom cable went live in August.

But users say services still remain too expensive for most ordinary Kenyans.

Senior government official Bitange Ndemo said there was evidence that some internet service providers (ISPs) were "fleecing the public".

Almost two months after the first high-speed cable made landfall, the highest residential⁴ internet speed offered by Kenya's largest ISP remains⁵ capped at one megabit per second (Mbps).

That speed is available only at night and at weekends, for an annual cost of $1,440 (£860). The average Kenyan annual wage is about $800, the UN estimates.

Dongle dilemmas⁶

Until late July, East African internet users were forced to pay for connections routed through expensive satellite connections.

Uptake was slowed by costs and business competitiveness was hampered⁷（阻碍，困累） by the delay in sending data from one point to another via satellite.

But with the imminent⁸（逼近的，即将到来的） availability of the 1.28 terabits（兆兆位，万亿比特） per second Teams connectivity, business figures, ISPs and the Kenyan government now insist that high-speed, low-cost internet is just around the corner.

Links are being completed to other East African nations, "digital villages" are being built in rural areas, and the speeds on offer are increasing, albeit⁹（虽然） slowly.

"The cable is here, it is functional¹⁰, and they are selling capacity," Bitange Ndemo told the BBC.

However, some in Nairobi feel that the cables themselves were over-hyped.

"I thought the cable would land and the next week we would have fast internet at home," said Ken² Kasima, a developer for the successful crowdsourcing service Ushahidi.

Speaking at a cafe in the basement of a Nairobi shopping centre where fellow developers and programmers meet to use a free wi-fi connection, Mr Kasima said the price of his 512kbps internet connection was preventing him working effectively at home.

His connection, like much of Kenya's personal internet in a country without a significant landline telephone network, is delivered by a mobile phone operator via a 3G dongle（软件狗） connected by USB. A top-up card gives him 1GB of data use for a fee of 2,500 Kenyan shillings (£20; $33).

At that price, Mr Kasima insists he needs to carefully control what he does online in an effort not to waste his credit and his money. Even if the connection allowed it - which it barely does - listening to music or watching video online is not sensible.

"When you take it in comparison to what you're doing, it's a lot (of money), trust me. It's like spending a million to buy a wheelbarrow（独轮手推车）," Mr Kasima said.

Slow process

Perhaps surprisingly, the managing director of one of Kenya's most prominent ISPs agrees with part of Mr Kasima's analysis.

Jonathan Somen of Access Kenya told the BBC that some in the communications industry were guilty of making unwise pronouncements before the cables landed.

But Mr Somen - whose company is a shareholder¹¹ in Teams - freely admitted that his products were aimed at business users and "high-end" residential customers, pointing out that Kenya needs major and costly¹² investment to build a modern telecoms infrastructure¹³.

"A lot of companies, ourselves included, have made significant investments in international and local infrastructure to deliver the new bandwidth," Mr Somen said.

"The more people get connected the more the economies of scale will kick in and prices will come down, but you can't expect fibre to land and that's the answer to all of our prayers.

"You have got to go through the stages to build up the infrastructure and the content."

His attitude is at odds¹⁴ with the approach of Bitange Ndemo, who called for those companies with investments to pay off to lower their prices to attract new customers.

"In Africa the argument is always that there are fewer customers so there is a need to charge a high premium（奖金，保险费）," he said.

"That is what annoys me, because you need to have low prices to get more people."