New subsea cable to connect Africa, Middle East and Europe

China Mobile International, Facebook, MTN Global Connect, Orange, stc, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC are teaming up to build 2Africa subsea cable that will connect 23 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

The parties have appointed Alcatel Submarine Networks to build the cable in a fully funded project which will enhance connectivity across Africa and the Middle East.

At 37,000 km long, 2Africa will be one of the world’s largest subsea cable projects and will interconnect Europe, the Middle East, and 21 landings in 16 countries in Africa. 

The system is expected to go live in 2023/24, 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 deliver much needed internet capacity and reliability across large parts of Africa, supplement the fast-growing capacity demand in the Middle East and underpin the further growth of 4G, 5G and fixed broadband access for hundreds of millions of people.

The 2Africa parties and Airtel have signed an agreement with Telecom Egypt to provide a completely new crossing linking the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. This includes new cable landing stations and deployment of next-generation fibre on two new, diverse terrestrial routes parallel to the Suez Canal from Ras Ghareb to Port Said, and a new subsea link that will provide a third path between Ras Ghareb and Suez.  

The 2Africa cable will implement a new technology, SDM1 from ASN, allowing deployment of up to 16 fibre pairs instead of the eight fibre pairs.

The cable will incorporate optical switching technology to enable flexible management of bandwidth. Cable burial depth has also been increased by 50% compared to older systems, and cable routing will avoid locations of known subsea disturbance.