Announced in 2019 and set to bring increased connectivity to Western and Southern Africa in the coming months, the Equiano subsea cable is being utilised by a number of service providers in the region.

One of them is Liquid Intelligent Technologies, which has announced that is has acquired a fibre pair of the Equiano cable, allowing it to transport traffic up to 12 Terabits.

“With older sub-sea cables almost at the end of their lifespan, Liquid through the Equiano cable system will address the growing need for Internet capacity supporting cloud services in both coastal and landlocked countries on the continent,” noted Liquid regarding its decision in a press release.

“The new Equiano subsea cable will link Africa to Europe via the West Coast of Africa when it is ready for service later in 2022, providing Terabit/s of capacity to meet the growing and varied business needs of organisations across Europe, Western and Southern Africa. Through its extensive fibre backbone and satellite services, Liquid can offer reliable telecommunications and cloud services to over 1.3 billion people across thousands of towns and cities in Africa,” it continues.

With the uptake in digital services and solutions rising in recent years, and only set to further increase in the coming years, the Equiano cable will prove vital as far as connectivity in the enterprise space is concerned.

The Equiano subsea cable has landings planned in Sesimbra (Portugal), Lomé (Togo), Lagos (Nigeria), Swakopmund (Namibia), Rupert’s Bay (Saint Helena) and Melkbosstrand (South Africa), with more landing stations planned in the future.

“The move extends Liquid’s One Africa Digital Network’s reach into Africa, providing connectivity to large data centres on the continent while granting access to major commercial hubs. Liquid plans to interconnect the Equiano landing stations to its East-West network across Africa, creating a new global IP route between Asia, Africa and the USA,” the service provider concludes.