The 2Africa consortium has announced that its subsea cable project has extended its operations thanks to addition of four new branches.

For those unfamiliar with the project, it is the largest of its kind and the consortium consists of China Mobile International, Facebook, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, STC, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC.

The branches will extend 2Africa’s connectivity to the Seychelles, the Comoros Islands and Angola, while bringing a new landing to South East Nigeria. This latest announcement follows the addition of a recent extension to the Canary Islands.

“Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) has been selected to deploy the new branches, which will increase the number of 2Africa landings to 35 in 26 countries, further improving connectivity into and around Africa. As with other 2Africa cable landings, capacity will be available to service providers at carrier-neutral data centres or open-access cable landing stations on a fair and equitable basis, encouraging and supporting the development of a healthy internet ecosystem,” explains a press release sent to Hypertext regarding the additional branches.

“Since launching the 2Africa cable in May 2020, the 2Africa consortium has made considerable progress in planning and preparing for the deployment of the cable, which is expected to ‘go live’ late 2023. Most of the subsea route survey activity is now complete. ASN has started manufacturing the cable and building repeater units in its factories in Calais and Greenwich to deploy the first segments in 2022,” it adds.

These additional branches are expected to be of significant importance in the coming years, especially in regions on the African continent and surrounding islands where connectivity has proved difficult to provide.

[Image – Photo by Jim Beaudoin on Unsplash]