Meta announces completion of core 2Africa cable

Meta has announced the completion of core 2Africa infrastructure, the world’s longest open access subsea cable system.

At 45,000km and first launched in May 2022, 2Africa is one of the world’s largest subsea cable projects. It was built through a consortium comprising global partners led by Meta, with the likes of Bayobab, Center3, CMI, Orange, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone Group and WIOCC. Meta regards 2Africa as a landmark subsea cable system that sets a new standard for global connectivity at unprecedented scale.

The consortium said its shared goal was to develop an open, inclusive network that fosters competition, supports innovation and unlocks new opportunities for millions. Moreover, having an open-access model is intended to ensure that multiple service providers can leverage the infrastructure, accelerating digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI) adoption across the region.

Recent partners including Bharti Airtel and MainOne (an Equinix Company) collaborated on datacentre integration, further expanding the cable’s impact and reach.

The deployment spanned 50 jurisdictions and nearly six years of work, relying on the active engagement of regulators and policymakers to navigate requirements and keep progress on track.

The network is the first cable to connect East and West Africa in a continuous system and link Africa to the Middle East, South Asia and Europe. With a current reach of 33 countries and still counting, the network is designed to enable connectivity for three billion people across Africa, Europe and Asia – more than 30% of the world’s population.

With a design capacity of up to 180Tbps on key parts of the system, and in addition to supplementing capacity demand in the Middle East, it is also designed to underpin the further growth of 4G, 5G and fixed broadband access, interconnecting Europe, eastward via Egypt, the Middle East via Saudi Arabia, and make 21 landings in 16 countries in Africa.

2Africa is attributed with delivering a step change in international bandwidth for Africa, with technical capacity that far exceeds previous systems. On the West segment, stretching from England to South Africa, and landing in countries such as Senegal, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, DRC and Angola, the cable supports 21 terabits per second (Tbps) per fibre pair, with eight fibre pairs on the trunk.

To gain the required throughput, the cable deployed advanced spatial division multiplexing (SDM) technology, supporting up to 16 fibre pairs per cable. This, says Meta, was double the capacity of older systems and represented the first 16-fibre-pair subsea cable to fully connect Africa. The link incorporated undersea optical wavelength switching, enabling flexible bandwidth management and supporting evolving demands for AI, cloud and high-bandwidth applications.

The cable system also features two independent trunk powering architectures across its West, East, and Mediterranean segments, in order to optimise capacity and providing additional resiliency against electrical faults. Meta added that its Our branching unit switching capability allowed it to optimise for trunk capacity and reliability by utilising routes much further offshore from hazards such as the Congo Canyon turbidity currents, while serving branches to West African nations.

To further ensure the integrity and reach of the cable, the consortium engineered compatible crossing solutions for over 60 oil and gas pipelines.

Observing the potential effect the cable could have, Meta expects that 2Africa could contribute up to $36.9bn to Africa’s GDP within just the first two to three years of operation. It was confident its arrival will boost job creation, entrepreneurship and innovation hubs in connected regions, and said evidence from previous cable landings have shown that fast internet access increases employment rates, improves productivity and supports shifts towards higher-skill occupations.