2Africa is one of the largest subsea cable projects in the world running over 45,000 km long, connecting Europe, the Middle East – including the Arabian Gulf - India and Pakistan, and 19 countries in Africa, and will provide internet capacity and reliability across much of the Middle East, India, Pakistan and Africa supporting the growth of 4G, 5G, and fixed broadband access for hundreds of millions of people and businesses.
2Africa will connect 19 countries in Africa and 33 in total. The system has four landings in South Africa and two each in Mozambique, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and Egypt, so a total of 27 landings in Africa and 46 in total. Delivering more than the total combined capacity of all subsea cables serving Africa today, with a design capacity of up to 180Tbps on key parts of the system, 2Africa will provide much-needed internet capacity and reliability across much of the Middle East, India, Pakistan and Africa supporting the growth of 4G, 5G, and fixed broadband access for hundreds of millions of people.
Working with local partners, China Mobile International, Meta, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, stc, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC will partner to build 2Africa. Telecom Egypt will provide 2Africa with brand-new trans-Egypt crossing routes, with the option to have a seamless optical path between East Africa and Europe.
2Africa is the first cable system designed to serve the whole of Africa, interconnecting the east and west seaboards of Africa. The cable further supports the continent by providing full connectivity to the Middle East, India and Pakistan, bringing seamless international connectivity to up to three billion people.
The 2Africa 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, bringing much greater and more cost-effective capacity. The cable will incorporate optical switching technology to enable flexible management of bandwidth, with the cable burial depth increased by 50% compared to older systems, and cable routing will avoid locations of known subsea disturbance, all helping to ensure the highest levels of availability.
One of the most important features of the 2Africa cable is that it has been designed with resiliency in mind to attain optimum performance. Building on that, Telecom Egypt will provide 2Africa with brand-new trans-Egypt terrestrial crossing routes, with the option to have a seamless optical path between East Africa and Europe. 2Africa will land in two sites in Egypt that were selected precisely to assure physical and geographical diversity. On the Red Sea, 2Africa will be landing at the Ras Ghareb landing site which is located 100 Km south of the Zafarana cable landing station, whereas the Mediterranean landing site, Port Said, is located 250 Km east of the Alexandria landing station. Both Ras Ghareb and Port Said are connected with two new and diverse terrestrial routes that include the deployment of next-generation fibre. The routes will be adjacent to the Suez Canal from Suez to Port Said, and will be complemented with a third new marine path linking the Ras Ghareb and Suez landing stations.
SDM (Spatial Division Multiplexing) is the latest innovative technology currently available for submarine cable and ASN was the first to introduce it to the market in 2016 (Suboptic’16). The idea is to use multiple paths to transport the capacity instead of a limited number of paths that will be pushed to their limits and consequently will not be efficient. SDM1 is a future-proof technology and a first stage in ASN strategy to be continued with SDM2.
SDM is the most efficient technology to date and brings major economic benefits thanks to lower and optimised price per bit, meaning that more capacity can be provided for the same price.
Moreover, as SDM is reducing the capacity per fibre, 2Africa will have the ability to offer parts of a fibre (spectrum sharing) and also a full independent fibre with reasonable capacity compared to traditional smaller pipes.
In countries where the 2Africa cable will land, service providers will obtain capacity at carrier-neutral data centres or open access landing stations, on a fair and equitable basis. This will support healthy internet ecosystem development by facilitating greatly improved accessibility for businesses and consumers alike.
With eight 2Africa parties and two key suppliers involved, all with focused roles, what brings them together is the desire to build greater connectivity and deliver increased internet speeds for much of Africa. The 2Africa parties will each own a share of the capacity delivered by the 2Africa system; the parties have contracted with Alcatel Submarine Networks (“ASN”) to build the subsea cable; and Telecom Egypt will provide 2Africa with brand-new trans-Egypt terrestrial crossing routes, with the option to have a seamless optical path between East Africa and Europe. 2Africa will land in two sites in Egypt that were selected precisely to assure physical and geographical diversity. On the Red Sea, 2Africa will be landing in Ras Ghareb landing site which is located 100 Km south of the Zafarana Landing station, whereas the Mediterranean landing site, Port Said, is located 250 Km east of the Alexandria landing station. Both Ras Ghareb and Port Said are connected with two new and diverse terrestrial routes and includes the deployment of next-generation fibre, the routes will be in vicinity with the Suez Canal from Suez to Port Said, and will be complemented with a third new marine path linking Ras Ghareb and Suez landing stations.
2Africa is expected to have a design capacity of up to 180Tbps at launch on key parts of the system. Future upgrade capability will be dependent on developments in optical engineering over the coming years.
We are currently working on a cable completion date in 2023/early 2024.
The landing countries are listed on the accompanying graphic(see the main graphic on our Home Page). Landings are scheduled to take place between end-2021 and end-2023.
The name chosen reflects the region that this cable will ultimately support. The cable system will deliver better and much-needed capacity ‘to Africa’, from Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
In the countries where the 2Africa cable lands, service providers will be able to access capacity at carrier-neutral data centres and open-access cable landing stations on a fair and equitable basis. This will support healthy internet ecosystem development enabling needed accessibility whilst supporting the growth of 4G, 5G, and fixed broadband access for hundreds of millions of people. Ultimately local pricing will be set by operators.
stc have provided a strategic branch landing in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, from where onward connectivity is available into stc’s Jeddah MENA Gateway Carrier Neutral Data centre (MG1). MG1 gives tenants the ability to onward connect to the whole of the Middle East region as well as to take onward capacity on other subsea and terrestrial networks.
Whilst the new cable system is called 2Africa, it is designed to serve key locations East to West. stc have provided a strategic branch into Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, from where onward connectivity is available into stc’s Jeddah MENA Gateway Carrier Neutral Data centre (MG1). From MG1 clients are able to cross-connect to various ecosystem tenants such as International/Regional Carriers, Cloud providers and Content Delivery Networks. MG1 also gives the ability to onward connect to the whole Middle East region. The ability for Africa to access the best connected DC Hub in the Region will be beneficial to Africa as it enables new, low latency access to Content and Cloud services previously accessed via distant CDNs in Europe.
Through interconnection in East Africa, 2Africa will provide expanded connectivity between the African continent and Asia, via subsea cables including the two latest cables, SEA-ME-WE 5 and AAE-1
In view of the active business interaction between Africa and Asia, the 2Africa cable can provide more direct, economic, stable and low latency connection from Asia to African countries through interconnection in East Africa and the Middle East with sufficient capacity to accommodate current and future demand.
Cable manufacturing and laying started in 2021 and the cable will be live in some places as early as 2023. Follow our progress through the map on our Updates page.
2Africa cable landing stations will be owned and managed by 2Africa parties or, where necessary by experienced local partners managed by one of the 2Africa parties.
