Facebook and a group of telecom companies are set to connect Nigeria and 22 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe to the Internet.
The project called 2Africa involved other telecoms operators such as China Mobile International, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange and Vodafone.
The companies, in a joint statement, said they were collaborating to build the ‘world’s largest’ subsea cable and had appointed Alcatel Submarine Networks to build the cable in a fully funded project.
The cables, according to the statement, will stretch to 37,000km (22,990 miles) and interconnect Europe (eastward via Egypt), the Middle East (via Saudi Arabia), and 21 landings in 16 countries in Africa.
The companies said they expected the system to be live by 2023 or early 2024 and would deliver more than the total combined capacity of all subsea cables serving Africa today, with a design capacity of up to 180Tbps on key parts of the system.
The companies such as Saudi Arabia-based telecom firm, STC, Telecom Egypt and African telecom firm, WIOCC, said service providers in the countries where 2Africa cable lands would obtain capacity in carrier-neutral data centres or open-access cable landing stations on a fair and equitable basis.
It added that the 2Africa parties and Airtel had signed an agreement with Telecom Egypt to provide a completely new crossing linking the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, the first in over a decade.
The Vice President of Network Infrastructure at Facebook, Najam Ahmad, said 2Africa is “a major element of our ongoing investment in Africa to bring more people online to a faster Internet.
“We’ve seen first-hand the positive impact that increased connectivity has on communities, from education to healthcare.”
The subsea cable would also help Facebook and others drive down their bandwidth costs.
The President of Alcatel Submarine Networks, Alain Biston, said, “We are honoured by the trust of our partners and proud to have been selected for this project. With this state-of-the-art subsea system, Africa will take a giant leap to the digital age thanks to the best-in-class technologies.”
Biston said the company had deployed the majority of submarine cables around the continent, adding that 2Africa would be a great new chapter.
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