At a "glitzy" ceremony held at Brusubi, Gambia, on Wednesday, the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable system was launched by the West African state's Vice President Isatou Njie-Saidy.

The launch of the first segments of the 17,000km ACE submarine cable links France and Sao Tomé & Principe. The data traffic-carrying cable will provide direct submarine cable connectivity to Gambia, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Mauritania, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Sao Tomé & Principe. Another segment, which will be launched in early 2013, will link Sao Tomé & Principe to South Africa.

The $700-million ACE submarine cable project involves the deployment of fiber optic cable along the African coast; with two non-coastal countries - Mali and Niger - to be linked via extensions to the terrestrial network.

The ACE submarine cable has been laid down along the Atlantic coasts of Africa and Europe. With the cable stretching from France to South Africa, the venture involves the participation of France Telecom and as many as 16 operators from 23 countries.

With the launch of the first segments of the ACE submarine cable underscoring the hope that data traffic and economic development will get a notable boost in Africa, which has been dependent on secondary and alternative routes of international communications for decades, Gambian VP Isatou Njie-Saidy said: "The introduction of ACE is a means to empower and liberate African countries from such dependency by linking them directly to the global telecommunications infrastructure."