JOHANNESBURG, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Facebook and a team of
African and global telecoms companies will add four more
countries to its world's largest subsea cable project, widening
the build project in Africa earlier than planned, they said in a
joint statement on Monday.
Internet connectivity will be expanded to the Seychelles,
the Comoros Islands, Angola and bring a new landing point to
south-east Nigeria. This is in addition to the recently
announced extension to the Canary Islands, the companies said.
The consortium of the project, called 2Africa, comprises
South Africa's MTN GlobalConnect, Facebook,
Mauritius-based infrastructure provider WIOCC, China Mobile
International, France's Orange SA, Saudi
Arabia's stc, Telecom Egypt and Vodafone.
Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) has been selected to deploy
the new "branches", which will increase the number of 2Africa
landings to 35 in 26 countries, further improving connectivity
into and around Africa, they added.
"Most of the subsea route survey activity is now complete.
ASN has started manufacturing the cable and building repeater
units in its factories in Calais and Greenwich to deploy the
first segments in 2022," the companies said.
The consortium launched the cable, which is expected to go
live in late 2023, in May 2020 to connect those countries in
Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
Subsea cables form the backbone of the internet, carrying
99% of the world's data traffic.
Africa's big economies have a large and fast growing
population of internet users, with growth in internet use
fuelled by rapidly expanding mobile broadband networks and more
affordable phones.
However, with a population of just above 1.3 billion, Africa
is still a laggard in internet connectivity, with average mobile
internet users at around 26% against a world average of 51%.
The companies said 2Africa will be the largest subsea cable
project in the world.
(Reporting by Nqobile Dludla; editing by David Evans)
Vodafone (VOD)