Africa may get faster access to online French language content thanks to pan-African broadband service provider Seacom and internet exchange operator France-IX forming a partnership.

In becoming a reseller of France-IX, Seacom says in a statement that its goal is to extend African operators and service providers’ networks to reach international peers and content at the interconnection point in Marseille, in the south of France.

An IX (internet exchange) or IXP (internet exchange point) allows service providers to connect directly rather than through one or more third-party networks.

Advantages of the Seacom-France-IX partnership, therefore, could include that African operators and service providers have a shorter path to content delivery networks (CDNs) that handle both French and English-speaking content, thanks to factors such as improved latency and bandwidth.

The 17,000km Seacom subsea broadband cable connects Africa’s eastern coastline to Europe and Southern Asia. The cable has what Seacom officials call point of presence areas in places such as Nairobi in Kenya and Maputo in Mozambique.

But the company says it also connects to West Africa via ‘meet me points’ that connect to partner cables in countries such as Ghana and Nigeria, which have large francophone neighbouring countries such as Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.

And Seacom officials have told ITWeb Africa that every customer who has access to a SEACOM Point of Presence (PoP) or Meet-Me-Point is planned to benefit from this offer.

“Partnerships such as this, together with our African and Global points of presence, allow SEACOM to provide innovative solutions that enable our customers’ to enhance their service offerings. Furthermore such a combination continues to place Seacom at the forefront of improving the Internet experience in Africa.” explains Robert Marston, product manager at Seacom, in a statement.

Seacom says the commercial offer is planned to be officially launched next week during the Africa Interconnection and Peering Forum (AfPIF) in Casablanca.

The International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF) estimated in 2010 that there are 96 million French speakers living in Africa.