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

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

The consortium, comprising China Mobile International, Facebook, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, stc, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC, has appointed Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) 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.

At 37 000 km long, the fully funded 2Africa will interconnect Europe, eastward through Egypt, the Middle East (Saudi Arabia) and through multiple landings across Africa, including a landing in South Africa.

The largest subsea cable project in the world, which will deliver faster, more reliable Internet service to each country where it lands, will enable access to capacity, on a fair and equitable basis, for service providers at carrier-neutral data centres or open- access cable landing stations.

This is expected to encourage and support the development of a healthy Internet ecosystem.

The parties signed a memorandum of understanding in 2018 to build the project and, 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, which is expected to go live late in 2023.

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, the Egypt terrestrial crossing that interconnects landing sites in Ras Ghareb, in the Red Sea, and Port Said, the Mediterranean landing site, through two completely diverse terrestrial routes, has been completed ahead of schedule, making it the first segment of the project in operation.

The two landing stations have been interconnected through two new and completely diverse terrestrial routes, deploying next-generation fibre. The new routes are adjacent to the Suez Canal, between Suez and Port Said, and will be complemented with a third new marine path that will link the Ras Ghareb and Suez landing stations, which is being built for further diversity.

This crossing is one of 2Africa’s key segments, providing a seamless optical path between East Africa, Asia and Europe.