Africa is about to get faster internet
Facebook has partnered with companies such as vodafone, Orange and MTN to lay a 37000 km long broadband Internet cable underwater acround the coast of Africa connecting 16 African countries among a total of 23 countries. The primary goal of this project as stated by Facebook is to increase Internet connectivity in Africa.
With the fastest growing population, Africa is also the least connected continent and therefore a vast potential untapped market for Internet giants such as Facebook. Through the project’s website (www.2africacable.com), Facebook claims that this is the largest sub-sea project in the world. Further, the company estimates that the project will deliver 180Tbps which is more than the capacity of all sub-sea cables serving Africa today.
Facebook projects to complete the project by 2024 and to provide each of the 16 African countries with landings “open-access cable landing stations on a fair and equiptable basis.” This is designed to improve accessibility for businesses and consumers.
On a recent conference call, Yael Maguire, Vice President of Engineering at Facebook whose team is leading this project expressed great satisfaction to be able to help bring more connectivity to Africa.
With all the great promises of connectivity, we hope that there will be great transparency in its management. As a private US company, Facebook will need to demonstrate to African governments how they maintain privacy over African data traveling through the cables.