African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1090 The World's Second Largest Submarine Cable Network

While the East African government was discussing how to extort money from Britain, Russell also explained the East African government's attitude to London through the convenient communication network.

After all the messages were sent out, Russell couldn't help but sigh to his subordinates: "From the perspective of communication technology and popularization alone, East Africa is already quite powerful!"

His assistant Robinson said: "In terms of communications, East Africa is on the same level as Europe and North America. Europe has the most advanced communications, and North America is also good. As for Africa as a whole, East Africa has almost single-handedly brought this continent to a level that it does not belong to."

East Africa had already established fairly developed telegraph and telephone lines as early as the last century, and a nationwide telegraph network was established in the 1980s. Of course, at that time, East Africa had not yet occupied lands such as Angola and Mozambique.

In the 1990s, East Africa not only achieved great breakthroughs in telecommunications technology, radio began to be promoted, but telegraph and telephone technology were also upgraded again. In addition, due to territorial reconstruction, economic development and other reasons, East Africa ushered in a wave of industrial construction in the communications field.

Domestically, East Africa has carried out large-scale communications construction in Angola, Mozambique, Orange and other regions, upgraded existing lines in the east and central regions, and rapidly laid communications cables in other underdeveloped areas, especially in northern East Africa.

By the beginning of the 20th century, during the period of East Africa's first two industrial plans, East Africa began to plan the laying of independent overseas submarine cables.

The most typical of these are the submarine cables between the West Coast and Western Europe and the two lines from East Africa to the Far East.

The main purpose of laying the West Coast submarine cable is to connect Western Europe, with Spain and France as access points, thus establishing a second submarine cable line connecting Europe.

On the east coast, East Africa also built a cable line directly to the Far Eastern Empire, crossing the Indian Ocean, connecting the Far Eastern Empire and other colonies in East Africa in the Lan Fang Overseas Province, and finally reaching Alaska. After all, Alaska's location is also in the Far East relative to East Africa.

In addition, there are sub-lines specifically connecting to the Middle East, India, Australia and other regions, which also shows the layout of East Africa in the entire Indian Ocean region.

As of now, East Africa is planning to build submarine cables directly connecting to South America, North America and other regions. Among them, the Haiti cable with South America has already begun construction. At that time, the connection between East Africa and South American countries will be closer.

In the field of communications, East Africa is actually playing a big game with the whole world, and a submarine cable network centered on East Africa is rapidly taking shape.

This is actually also learning from the British government, which was one of the first countries to recognize the role of submarine cables in the political and military fields.

As a colonial power, Britain's overseas colonies are spread all over the world, so Britain itself has an urgent need for communication technology. In the process of continuously building communication networks connecting the mainland and overseas colonies, the British discovered other uses of submarine cables and have been continuously making arrangements in this field since the middle of the last century.

Now, decades later, the UK still firmly controls the world's largest and most complete submarine cable network. Even if there are many competitors behind it, it is difficult to offset the UK's first-mover advantage.

The earlier the construction is completed, the more customers you will have, and the inertia of information interaction will continue to strengthen this advantage, which will be more vividly reflected in the field of commercial trade.

Of course, faced with Britain's hegemony in communications, other powerful countries in the world will not choose to lie low. Countries like East Africa, the United States, France, Germany, etc. will all build alternatives with their own countries as the core.

Ernst had anticipated this outcome early on, and began making arrangements in related fields in the early stages of the formation of East African countries. This has brought considerable benefits to East Africa today. Although the submarine cable network is still not comparable to that of the United Kingdom in scale, it is also the first to complete the world's second largest submarine cable network dominated by East Africa.

When the laying of submarine cables between North and South America is completed, East Africa will have initially built a second submarine cable network that can connect most of the world and is centered on the country. In addition to the telegraph industry, East Africa has taken the lead in the fields of telephone and radio communications, which further magnifies East Africa's advantages.

In the field of communications, especially in the laying of submarine cables, East African countries actually have a great geographical advantage. The African continent occupies a relatively unique position in the world pattern.

The African continent is located below the Eurasian continent, runs across the equator, and occupies a large area in both the northern and southern hemispheres, making it an important link that cannot be avoided in the laying of submarine cables.

For example, the UK's submarine cable connects to India and other regions through the Red Sea and the Cape of Good Hope, completely circling the African continent.

East Africa is the core of the African continent, so the radiation from East Africa to other parts of the world is less likely to be interfered with. It is on this basis that the East African government has established the world's second largest submarine cable network.

Therefore, it is quite convenient for East Africa to obtain information from various regions of the world, and it is almost impossible for this telecommunications network to be cut off by the British.

The reason why Britain is mentioned is mainly because Britain had such a record in the previous World War I. After the World War I broke out, the British government cut off the main line of the submarine cable between Germany and the United States, which delayed the transmission of information between Germany and the United States.

Relying on its geographical advantages, the United Kingdom almost controls telecommunications in the Nordic region. Countries like Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Russia and others are all directly influenced by the United Kingdom to a certain extent.

This information advantage did provide great help to Britain in World War I. At least the United States' attitude towards Germany was greatly affected.

After Britain cut off direct contact between Germany and the United States, German information passing through Britain was again under the surveillance of the British government. The British government could use its public opinion advantage to arouse American society's disgust towards Germany, facilitating the United States' eventual participation in World War I.

Although the U.S. government's participation in the war was driven by U.S. national interests, the instigation of public sentiment must have been instigated by the British behind the scenes. It should be noted that there were many Germans in the United States in the past. If these Germans were not instigated by the war of public opinion, they would inevitably have a huge impact on the democratically elected government of the United States.

Apart from anything else, just from the experience of the East African governments, the people of East Africa would naturally have a certain degree of affection for the German region of Europe or the Far East Empire.

From this, it can be inferred that the largest immigrant group in the United States in the past, namely the German immigrants, could obviously play a huge role in American public opinion if they were not misled.

Britain was able to lead this public opinion offensive against the American people, put the main blame for the war on Germany, and win the sympathy of American society for the Allied Powers led by Britain. Its fundamental approach was to directly cut off the connection between the United States and Germany.

Therefore, in order to prevent East Africa from falling into the predicament of Germany in the past, and for someone like Ernst who always puts national security first, it is particularly important to build a world communications network that is not interfered with by Britain.

Moreover, the construction of this network has greatly helped East Africa to influence public opinion in Europe and other regions. When industrial construction was being carried out in East Africa, the East African government used the communication network to achieve a certain degree of "stigmatization" of East Africa, which did affect the attitudes of European countries towards East Africa to a certain extent.

When East Africa was booming, many Europeans did lack a correct understanding of East Africa due to the East African government's propaganda war. Not to mention foreign countries, even East Africa itself was affected to a certain extent, giving people the illusion that East Africa was similar to India.

Of course, the East African government will not over-publicize, but rather cover up the radical situation in the country's development. If East Africa publicizes its own industrial construction achievements like the Soviet Union did in the past, it can achieve a similar effect, but this can easily cause backlash.

(End of this chapter)