Name of the Project
2Africa subsea cable.

Location
The subsea cable will interconnect Europe, eastward through Egypt and the Middle East through Saudi Arabia, with 21 landings in 16 countries across Africa.

Project Owner/s
The project is a partnership between China Mobile International, Facebook, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, stc, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and West Indian Ocean Cable Company.

Project Description
2Africa will be one of the world's biggest subsea cable projects.

The subsea cable will deliver much-needed Internet capacity and reliability across large parts of Africa, and supplement the fast-growing capacity demand in the Middle East. It will also underpin further growth of fourth-generation, or 4G, and fifth-generation, or 5G, as well as fixed broadband access for hundreds of millions of people.

A 37 000-km-long cable system will deliver more than the total combined capacity of all subsea cables currently serving Africa, with a design capacity of up to 180 Tbps on key parts of the system.

The system has 35 landings in 26 countries.

The 2Africa cable will implement a new tech­nology, Spatial Division Multiplexing, or SDM1, from Alcatel Submarine Networks, which allows for the deployment of up to 16 fibre pairs instead of the eight fibre pairs supported by older technologies, introducing much greater and more cost-effective capacity. The cable will incorporate optical switching tech­nology to allow for flexible management of bandwidth.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Capital Expenditure
Not stated.

Planned Start/End Date
The system is expected to go live in 2023/4.

Latest Developments
The 2Africa consortium has added four new branches to the 2Africa cable, extending its connectivity to the Seychelles, the Comoros Islands and Angola, as well as bringing a new landing to south-east Nigeria.

The new branches will join the extension to the Canary Islands.

Since launching the 2Africa cable in May 2020, the 2Africa consortium has made significant progress in planning and preparing for the deployment of the cable.

Most of the subsea route survey activity is now complete and ASN has started manufacturing the cable and building repeater units in its factories, in Calais and Greenwich, to deploy the first segments in 2022.

Further, one of 2Africa’s key segments, the Egypt terrestrial crossing – which interconnects landing sites on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea through two completely diverse terrestrial routes ­– has been completed ahead of schedule.

A third diverse marine path will complement this segment through the Red Sea.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
Alcatel Submarine Networks (cable construction).

Contact Details for Project Information
2Africa Cable email contact@2AfricaCable.com.