West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) tapped Ciena for a fiber running from Portugal to along the coast of Africa. The effort looks to expand open access infrastructure in Africa and provide high-capacity cable connectivity between the two continents so that telcos are able to minimize delays and add diversity and resilience to their network routes between Africa and Europe.

The plans include activating a fiber pair on the Equiano cable – marking the first operator to activate on the submarine cable system – and the 2Africa cable. The Equiano pair will be live by the end of this year, while the 2Africa pair is currently in deployment and scheduled to go live in stages over the next two years. The work will connect open access data centers (OADCs) across Lagos, Nigeria, and Rondebosch, South Africa.

“By working closely with Ciena, WIOCC has been able to minimize lead times and benefit from technical support needed to procure and install the submarine line terminating equipment (SLTE) required to activate its capacity, putting WIOCC in a position to light its [fiber] pair as soon as testing is complete and the cable goes live,” WIOCC VP Mike Last told SDxCentral.

In the last year, WIOCC OADCs "has deployed over 30 data centers across South Africa, connected directly to national and international routes – to include Equiano – extending the cloud closer to the network edge,” Last explained. “This will not only result in improvements to digital inclusion, but will also expedite the deployment [of] 5G, IoT, and other advanced services that will bring huge benefits to businesses, communities, and individual consumers."

According to Last, the activation plans’ “initial beneficiaries” will include cloud operators, telcos, ISPs, and mobile operators that have already committed to tapping into its capacity.

“They will use it to increment existing connectivity on the west coast of Africa, minimize round trip delays – Equiano is the lowest latency route between South Africa and Europe – and add diversity and resilience to their network routes between South Africa, Nigeria, and Europe,” he explained.

But the expected impact of Equiano becoming operational will deliver a much larger impact for the countries of Nigeria and South Africa, according to Africa Practice and Genesis Analytics’ impact assessment.

In terms of connection, Nigerian internet speeds will increase from 14 Mb/s to 77 Mb/s and speeds in South Africa from 28 Mb/s to 75 Mb/s, which will subsequently change internet retail prices by 21% in both countries.

The assessment also finds both countries will see GDP boosted and new jobs generated. Nigeria will gain 1.6 million jobs and see GDP increased by $11.1 billion by 2025. South Africa will see an additional 180,000 generated jobs and a GDP increase of $5.8 billion by 2025.

Three connection-based impact pathways of paper reduction, petrol reduction, and reduced energy demand in real estate will also cut 2.8 million tons of CO2 emissions per year in Nigeria and 2.3 million tons in South Africa.