Djibouti as a country and Djibouti Telecom are proud to be involved in the 2Africa subsea cable project led by Facebook. Dubbed as ‘2Africa’ it is one of the largest subsea projects in the world, connecting 23 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Djibouti will be one of the 16 Africa landing countries.
Facebook wrote this blog post on their website and stated:
As part of our commitment, we’re proud to announce that Facebook has partnered with leading African and global operators to build 2Africa, the most comprehensive subsea cable to serve the African continent and Middle East region. A transformational cable, 2Africa is one of the largest subsea cable projects in the world and will interconnect 23 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.
Facebook
The map below shows the planned cable:
Some Key Facts:
- The total length of the cable will be 37,000 kilometres long
- The first subsea cable system to connect East and West Africa across a single open system
- It will provide nearly three times the total network capacity of all the subsea cables serving Africa today.
- Design capacity of up to 180Tbps on major parts of the system
- Support further growth of 4G, 5G
- The cable will implement new technology, SDM1 from ASN, allowing deployment of up to 16 fibre pairs instead of the 8 fibre pairs supported by older technologies
- Cable burial depth has also been increased by 50 per cent compared to older systems
- The system is expected to go live in 2023/4
The current global pandemic has further highlighted the importance of connectivity as more people rely on the internet infrastructure to work, study and stay connected with loved ones. Africa is currently the most unconnected continent and this new initiative will help bring millions of Africans online and is completely in line with Djibouti Telecom’s vision.
Stay tuned for further updates as we’ll post further news of this cable here on this blog.