Town was laid in 1899 during the Second Boer War, this time from Ascension Island, by the Eastern Telegraph Company (later Cable & Wireless plc). In the mid-twentieth century undersea telephone cables were also commissioned. In 1968, the SAT-1 cable was laid. It connected from Melkbosstrand, South Africa to Sesimbra, Portugal. The network continued to develop through internal financing in a heavily regulated market as international technology developed. At this point, telephone services were operated by the South African Post Office. In the 1960s, South Africa was connected to 72 nations and total outgoing annual international calls numbered over 28,800. Telkom was incorporated on 30 September 1991 as a public limited liability company registered under the South African Companies Act, 61 of 1973, as amended. In 1993 GSM was demonstrated for the first time in Africa at Telkom '93 in Cape Town. In 1994 the first GSM networks in Africa were launched in South Africa. In 1994, South Africa launched a mobile operations, underwritten by Telkom in partnership with Vodafone, with 36,000 active customer on the network. This subsidiary grew to be Vodacom, which Telkom sold in late 2008 in preference for its own 3G network. Vodacom has a subscriber base of more than R45M, with an average revenue per user of more than R60 across both rural and urban subscribers. Vodacom, together with the other operators, have come under criticism in late 2009 by government and the public for high interconnect charges. This issue was currently being discussed by the Parliamentary Committee on Telecommunications. The first public videoconference between the continent of Africa and North America occurred on 24 June 1995 (2:00-3:00 p.m. PST). The Cybersafari Digital Be-In and Internet Love-Fest linked a technology fair at Fort Mason in San Francisco with a techno "rave" and cyber-deli in Woodstock, Cape Town. For one hour, members of the public communicated with each other via a simple Picturetel system using a 128kb ISDN line. "Cognitive dissident" and communications activist David Robert Lewis initiated the video conference and peacecast on the San Francisco side, and Freddie Bell answered the call in Woodstock, Cape Town. Because of different ISDN standards, a video bridge via Boston was used to achieve the link, which also featured interactive dancing. Organisations which took credit were technology sponsors Picturetel and Telkom, plus Peacecast organisers Unity 95, Parallel University, Vortex, Creativity Cafe and line producer "Cybersafari to Africa". In