2020 and a New Undersea Cable Around Africa
2Africa a subsea cable the length of the circumference of the world
Facebook & co is building an enormous undersea cable encircling Africa almost the length of the circumference of the world. It is said it will triple the total network capacity of all the existing subsea cables serving Africa today.
It is an enormous cable to say the least. It will be one of the largest undersea cable projects in the world.
This was made clear in a recent press release by Facebook issued on the 13th of May 2020.
“Connectivity is at the heart of our mission to give people the power to build community. We are committed to bringing more people online to a faster internet — and with 3.5 billion people globally unconnected, there is still a lot to do. Africa is currently the least connected continent, with just over a quarter of its 1.3 billion people connected to the internet. As part of our commitment, we’re proud to announce that Facebook has partnered with leading African and global operators to build 2Africa, the most comprehensive subsea cable to serve the African continent and Middle East region.”
2Africa will interconnect 23 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.
At 37,000 kilometers long, it is an enormous undertaking.
“When completed, this new route will deliver much-needed internet capacity, redundancy, and reliability across Africa; supplement a rapidly increasing demand for capacity in the Middle East; and support further growth of 4G, 5G, and broadband access for hundreds of millions of people.”
Another interesting aspect in terms of hardware is the change in materials.
Apparently it will be made more durable using aluminium instead of copper.
Surely, this is a development worth taking note of and it will affect as well the possibilities in terms of deploying more advanced technical solutions relating to artificial intelligence as well as the overall IT infrastructure in the region.
This is #500daysofAI and you are reading article 377. I am writing one new article about or related to artificial intelligence every day for 500 days.
