A conglomerate of international telcos will join forces to transform connectivity across Africa and the Middle East by building and deploying a new subsea cable route.
The 2Africa cable will connect 23 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, with a design capacity of 100Tbps. In Africa itself, the cable will land in 16 countries through 21 landing stations.
The 2Africa cable wil be a joint venture between telecoms heavyweights, STC, Vodafone, MTN Group, China Mobile, Facebook and WIOCC. At 37,000km in length, the 2Africa cable will be the world’s longest and most ambitious subsea telecoms cabling project.
“STC are excited to be part of 2Africa. 2Africa will be integrated into STC’s MENA Gateway datacentre hub in Jeddah (MG1), where 2Africa partners can access low latency international content, whilst having the ability to interconnect to the wider MENA region via Saudi Arabia,” an STC spokesperson said.
The new cable will deploy up to 16 fibre pairs and will deliver capacity of 100Tbps. The 2Africa cable has been designed to improve resilience and maximise performance, including the provision of a seamless optical crossing between East Africa and Europe.
The 2Africa consortium has signed an agreement with Airtel and Telecom Egypt to develop a completely new crossing, linking the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, the first in over a decade.
This will include deployment of next generation fibre on two new, diverse terrestrial routes parallel to the Suez Canal from Ras Ghareb to Port Said, and a new subsea cable that will provide a third path between Ras Ghareb and Suez.
"The 2Africa subsea cable project is a bold step in its strategy and complements MTN GlobalConnect terrestrial fibre projects that connect African countries to each other and to the rest of the world. It truly whets the appetite of a young and dynamic population. MTN GlobalConnect is delighted to be alongside our partners, and proud to play a key role in providing the benefits of a modern connected life – a core MTN belief,” an MTN Group spokesperson said.
The 2Africa cable will introduce new technology allowing deployment of up to 16 fibre pairs instead of the 8 fibre pairs supported by older technologies, bringing much greater and more cost-effective capacity. The cable will incorporate optical switching technology to enable flexible management of bandwidth, cable burial depth has been increased by 50 per cent compared to older systems and cable routing will avoid locations of known subsea disturbance, all helping to ensure the highest levels of availability.