By Adedapo Adesanya
The 2Africa consortium has extended its subsea cable system to the Arabian Gulf, Pakistan, and India, meaning it will be providing international connectivity to an additional 1.8 billion people, bringing the total to 3 billion people.
The alliance comprises Facebook, China Mobile International, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, stc, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC. The new addition is known as the 2Africa PEARLS branch.
This extension will bring the total length of the 2Africa cable system to over 45,000 kilometres, making it the longest subsea cable system ever deployed.
Now connecting three continents, Africa, Europe and Asia terrestrially through Egypt, 2Africa creates unique connectivity by adding vital landing locations in Oman (Barka), UAE (Abu Dhabi and Kalba), Qatar (Doha), Bahrain (Manamah), Kuwait (Kuwait), Iraq (Al-Faw), Pakistan (Karachi), India (Mumbai), and a fourth landing in Saudi Arabia (Al Khobar).
The new 2Africa branch joins recently announced extensions to the Canary Islands, Seychelles, Comoros Islands, Angola, and a new landing to south-east Nigeria.
As with other 2Africa cable landings, capacity will be available in PEARLS landings at carrier-neutral facilities or open-access cable landing stations on a fair and equitable basis, encouraging and supporting the development of a healthy internet ecosystem.
To further support a burgeoning global digital economy, the expanded system will serve an even wider range of communities that rely on the internet for services from education to healthcare, and businesses, providing economic and social benefits that come from increased connectivity.
As announced in May 2020, 2Africa was planned to directly bring seamless international connectivity to 1.2 billion people. By providing international connectivity to an additional 1.8 billion people by three billion people, representing 36 per cent of the global population.
Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) will deploy the new system utilizing new technologies such as SDM that allow the deployment of up to 16 fibre pairs, double that of older technologies and bringing greater and more cost-effective capacity.
