Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
2Africa
Proposed international submarine telecommunications cable From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
2Africa is an international submarine telecommunications cable that interconnects Africa and further connects Asia and Europe. It passes from Europe through the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean, and then back into Europe via the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.[2]
It is one of the first submarine cables to use spatial division multiplexing (SDM1) and has a design capacity of 180 Tbps across 16 fiber pairs.[2][3] 2Africa is the largest subsea cable in the world, at 45,000 kilometers long, connecting 46 cable landing stations across 33 countries.[4]
The system is to be constructed by Alcatel Submarine Networks[5] and is intended to be operational in Q4 2025.[4] In November 2025, Meta announced that the core 2Africa system was completed.[6]
Remove ads
Cable ownership
2Africa is funded by a consortium consisting of eight members, namely:[7]
- Meta Platforms
- China Mobile
- MTN Group
- Orange S.A.
- Saudi Telecom Company
- Telecom Egypt
- Vodafone Group Plc
- West Indian Ocean Cable Company
Open access model
The consortium has mandated that every operator of 2Africa must provide effective access to the international capacity at reasonable prices and on non-discriminatory terms. Cable landing station operators can be penalized and even completely disconnected from the 2Africa system if they fail to provide access to capacity at their landing points.[7][8]
Remove ads
Landing points and operators
Summarize
Perspective
In September 2021, 2Africa announced a new segment of the cable called '2Africa PEARLS', which extends to the Persian Gulf, India and Pakistan.[40]
Remove ads
See also
References
External links
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads