Name of the Project
Equiano subsea cable.

Location
Equiano will start in Western Europe and run along the west coast of Africa, between Portugal and South Africa.

Project Owner/s
Wholesale infrastructure provider Google, alongside a variety of partners and carriers, including South African company Openserve, which will also be able to use and benefit from the cable’s additional capacity.

Project Description
Equiano is a private subsea cable that will connect Africa with Europe.

Google’s private subsea cables all carry the names of historical luminaries. Equiano is named after Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist who was enslaved as a boy.

The cable’s state-of-the-art infrastructure is based on space-division multiplexing technology, with about 20 times more network capacity than the last cable built to serve this region.

Equiano will be the first subsea cable to incorporate optical switching at the fibre-pair level, rather than the traditional approach of wavelength-level switching. This greatly simplifies the allocation of cable capacity, providing Google with the flexibility to add and reallocate it in different locations as needed.

The cable will have branching units along the way that can be used to extend connectivity to additional African countries.

The Equiano subsea cable has landings planned in Sesimbra (Portugal), Lomé (Togo), Swakopmund (Namibia), Rupert’s Bay (Saint Helena) and Melkbosstrand (South Africa), with more landing stations planned in the future.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Capital Expenditure
The cable is fully funded by Google.

Planned Start/End Date
A contract to build the cable was signed in the fourth quarter of 2018 and was completed in September 2022.

Latest Developments
Cassava Technologies subsidiary Liquid Dataport has acquired a pair of fibre cables on Equiano.

The additional capacity augments Liquid Dataport’s existing pan-African fibre network, global satellite connectivity and subsea cable backbone.

The move extends Liquid’s One Africa Digital Network’s reach, and Cassava’s Africa Data Centres will host Liquid Dataport’s equipment for the Equiano subsea cables.

The Equiano cable system will be available in all Africa Data Centres’ facilities and provide Liquid Dataport’s customers with access to vast amounts of capacity at a reduced price.

Liquid Dataport plans to interconnect the Equiano landing stations to its East-West network across Africa, strengthening further its global IP route between Asia, Africa and the US

Openserve and Google officially launched the Equiano undersea cable in September 2022, after it reached its final landing in South Africa.

Key Contracts, Suppliers and Consultants
Alcatel Submarine Networks (construction contract).

Contact Details for Project Information
Google press team, email press@google.com.