The next phase of the 17 000 km Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable system, which will extend to South Africa and bring the number of countries connected to the cable to 25, is set to get under way.
Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks was preparing to deploy its 100 Gb/s submarine technology across the 5 000 km extension from the Gulf of Guinea island of Sao Tomé-et-Principe to South Africa.
Phase II, the completion of which would see the delivery of an overall design capacity of 12.8 Tb/s, would link Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville and South Africa, with an extension to Cameroon.
“The extension of the ACE system to South Africa is a significant milestone that confirms our commitment to address the connectivity challenges facing Africa,” said ACE management committee chairperson Yves Ruggeri.
Through the 19-operator ACE consortium, which was led by Orange, around 12 000 km of fibre-optic cable currently connected 18 countries, including France, Portugal, the Canary Islands, Mauritania, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria and São Tomé-et-Príncipe.
The consortium had invested around $700-million in the construction of the cable, which first went live in 2012.