2Africa

Last updated
2Africa
Cable typeFibre-optic
Area served Africa, Middle East, and Europe [1]
Website www.2africacable.net

2Africa is an international submarine telecommunications cable that circumnavigates the coastline of Africa to interconnect Europe and the Middle East. It is funded by a consortium of companies including several telcos and Meta. [2] The system will be one of the first to use spatial division multiplexing (SDM1). [3] [4]

Contents

2Africa pass from Europe through the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean, and then back into Europe via the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. [3]

The system is to be constructed by Alcatel Submarine Networks. [5] and is intended to be operational in 2023. [3] On 9 December 2022, the cable landed in South Africa, which will be formally launched by MTN Group on 13 December 2022. [6] [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TAT-14</span> Former transatlantic telephone cable

TAT-14 was the 14th consortium transatlantic telecommunications cable system. In operation from 2001 to 2020, it used wavelength division multiplexing. The cable system was built from multiple pairs of fibres—one fibre in each pair was used for data carried in one direction and the other in the opposite direction. Although optical fibre can be used in both directions simultaneously, for reliability it is better not to require splitting equipment at the end of the individual fibre to separate transmit and receive signals—hence a fibre pair is used. TAT-14 used four pairs of fibres—two pairs as active and two as backup. Each fibre in each pair carried 16 wavelengths in one direction, and each wavelength carried up to an STM-256. The fibres were bundled into submarine cables connecting the United States and the European Union in a ring topology.

A transatlantic telecommunications cable is a submarine communications cable connecting one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, each cable was a single wire. After mid-century, coaxial cable came into use, with amplifiers. Late in the 20th century, all cables installed used optical fiber as well as optical amplifiers, because distances range thousands of kilometers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Submarine power cable</span> Transoceanic electric power line placed on the seabed

A submarine power cable is a transmission cable for carrying electric power below the surface of the water. These are called "submarine" because they usually carry electric power beneath salt water but it is also possible to use submarine power cables beneath fresh water. Examples of the latter exist that connect the mainland with large islands in the St. Lawrence River.

Global Cloud Xchange (GCX) is a company which provides network services for enterprises, new media providers and telecoms carriers. In September 2022, it was acquired by 3i Infrastructure for $512 million.

Subsea technology involves fully submerged ocean equipment, operations, or applications, especially when some distance offshore, in deep ocean waters, or on the seabed. The term subsea is frequently used in connection with oceanography, marine or ocean engineering, ocean exploration, remotely operated vehicle (ROVs) autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), submarine communications or power cables, seafloor mineral mining, oil and gas, and offshore wind power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danice</span> Submarine cable connecting Denmark and Iceland

The DANICE submarine communications cable system transits 2250 km of the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea to connect Iceland and Denmark. It consists of four fibre pairs, capable of carrying in total up to 36.4 Tbit/s of data using 100Gbit/s coherent wavelength technology available in 2013. The cable went into operation in November 2009 and has had no submarine faults. The operator of the cable is Farice ehf. The complementary cable is FARICE-1. DANICE has cable landing points at:

Europe India Gateway (EIG) is a submarine communications cable system that connects the U.K., Portugal, Gibraltar, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Sea Link</span> Subsea electricity transmission line

The North Sea Link is a 1,400 MW high-voltage direct current submarine power cable between Norway and the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gulf Bridge International</span>

Gulf Bridge International (GBI) is the Middle East's first privately owned submarine cable system linking the countries bordering the Persian Gulf on a self-healing ring to each other and onward to Europe, Africa and Asia. Gulf Bridge International (GBI), both owns and operates this submarine cable asset as a carrier's carrier as well as offering a full suite of wholesale transmission, IP capacity options, and Enterprise Services. Its main headquarters are located at the Qatar Science & Technology Park in Doha, Qatar.

SAex is a proposed submarine communications cable linking South Africa to the United States with branches to Namibia, Saint Helena, and Brazil.

Equiano is a private transatlantic communications cable that connects western Europe (Portugal) with southern Africa. Branching points along the way connect to Togo, Nigeria, the island of St. Helena and Namibia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bay of Bengal Gateway</span>

The Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) is a submarine communications cable providing a direct trunk connection between Barka and Penang (Malaysia) with four branches to Fujairah (UAE), Mumbai (India), Colombo and Chennai (India). The project was carried out by a consortium that includes Vodafone, Omantel, Etisalat, AT&T, China Telecom, Telstra, Reliance Jio Infocomm, Dialog and Telekom Malaysia. Construction was started in May 2013 and was completed by the end of 2014. From Penang the system is connected via a terrestrial connection to Singapore. The length of the submarine Cable system is 5,934 kilometres (3,687 mi) from Barka to Penang, with a 216 km (134 mi) branch to Fujairah, 426 km (265 mi) branch to Mumbai, 142 km (88 mi) branch to Colombo and a 1,322 km (821 mi) branch to Chennai, totalling a total length of 8,040 km (5,000 mi).

West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) operates as a wholesaler, providing capacity to international telecoms, cloud operators, content providers and internet service providers within and out of Africa. WIOCC offers carriers connectivity to over 550 locations across 30 African countries – utilising more than 75,000 km (47,000 mi) of terrestrial fibre and 200,000 km (120,000 mi) of submarine fibre-optic cable. WIOCC's international network reach currently extends to 100 cities in 29 countries in Europe and more than 700 cities in 70 countries globally.

Duynefontein is a proposed site for new nuclear power station. It is a coastal site next to and just north of Koeberg Nuclear Power Station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MAREA</span>

MAREA is a 6,605 km long transatlantic communications cable connecting the United States with Spain. Owned and funded by Microsoft and Meta Platforms, but constructed and operated by Telxius, a subsidiary of the Spanish telecom company Telefónica, it is the "highest-capacity submarine cable in the world" with a system design capacity of 200 terabits per second as of 2019.

South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 6 is an in-progress optical fibre submarine communications cable system that would carry telecommunications between Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Western Europe. It is estimated to cost between $65 million and US$72 million. Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Djibouti, Egypt, Turkey, Italy, France, Myanmar and Yemen are members of the SEA-ME-WE-6 Consortium. It will run from Singapore to France and will have a bandwidth of 120 Tbps. Once completed, It will be 19,200 km long. Work on SEA-ME-WE 6 began in early 2022. It is expected to be in operation in the first quarter of 2025. In Saudi Arabia, its landing point will be the Mobily landing station in the city of Yanbu.

Grace Hopper is a private transatlantic communications cable that connects the United States of America with the UK (Bude) and Spain (Bilbao). It was announced by Google in 2020 and scheduled to go live in 2022. The US to UK (Bude) leg went live on 27 September 2022.

The Oman Australia Cable (OAC) is a 9,800 km fibre-optic submarine communications cable that entered service in September 2022, linking Oman and Australia via the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The cable consists of three fibre pairs and had an initial design capacity of 39 terabits per second.

Digital 9 Infrastructure is an investment company which invests in digital infrastructure. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company is managed by Triple Point Investment Management, a firm based in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European Union submarine internet cables</span> Issues around EU cable infrastructure

Submarine internet cables, also referred to as submarine communications cables or submarine fiber optic cables, connect different locations and data centres to reliably exchange digital information at a high speed.

References

  1. "Building 2Africa, a transformative subsea cable to better connect Africa". Facebook Engineering. 2020-05-14. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  2. "Facebook, telcos to build huge subsea cable for Africa and Middle East". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-05-14.[ permanent dead link ]
  3. 1 2 3 Chanthadavong, Aimee. "Facebook to build a subsea cable to improve connectivity in Africa". ZDNet. Retrieved 2020-05-15.
  4. 1 2 Vermeulen, Jan (9 December 2022). "Facebook's massive undersea cable lands in South Africa". MyBroadband. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  5. "2Africa: New mega subsea cable to connect continent - TechCentral". techcentral.co.za. Retrieved 2020-05-14.
  6. "2Africa Lands in Ras Ghareb, Egypt - IT News Africa - Up to date technology news, IT news, Digital news, Telecom news, Mobile news, Gadgets news, Analysis and Reports". www.itnewsafrica.com. Retrieved 2022-12-09.