This archive report was first published on 15 May 2020.
Published on May 15, 2020, a new undersea fibre cable network by Facebook will connect Kenya and 15 other African countries to the global internet. The 2Africa cable, built in partnership with several international companies, will be one of the world's largest subsea cable projects.
Spanning 37,000km, the cable will connect Europe, the Middle East, and 21 landings in 16 countries in Africa. The system is expected to deliver more than the total combined capacity of all subsea cables currently serving Africa, with a design capacity of up to 180Tbps on key parts of the system.
According to Facebook, the 2Africa project aims to deliver much-needed internet capacity and reliability across large parts of Africa. This comes at a time when Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are struggling to meet a surge in demand for steady broadband, as more sectors in the economy move operations to the internet in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have seen an increase of traffic at the Kenya Internet Exchange Point (KIXP) from an average of 7.5Gps to 22.6Gps,” said Fiona Asonga, the CEO at the Kenya Internet Exchange Point and the Telecommunications Service Providers Association of Kenya. “The increase has been on local content as well as international video content and financial services.”
Facebook's Vice President, Network Infrastructure, Najam Ahmad, expressed excitement about the collaboration with partners on the 2Africa project. “2Africa is a major element of our ongoing investment in Africa to bring more people online to faster internet. We’ve seen first-hand the positive impact that increased connectivity has on communities.”
