MTN South Africa lands 2Africa subsea cable

MTN South Africa has announced that it has landed the 45,000 km 2Africa subsea cable in partnership with MTNGlobalConnect, MTN Group’s digital wholesale and infrastructure services company, and the 2Africa Consortium. 

The landing, which took place in Yzerfontein and Duynefontein, Western Cape, is the first in a series of six across five countries: South Africa (two landin sites), Sudan, Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria and Ghana.  The 2Africa cable connection will go live in 2023.

In a statement, MTN stated that the cable will lay the foundation for improved global internet access, connecting people and continents. Once live, it will play a big part in delivering much-needed capacity in Africa from Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

“We are proud of the progress made on our journey and of the key role we are playing in providing South Africans and the rest of Africa with the benefits of a modern connected life,” stated MTN GlobalConnect CEO, Frédéric Schepens.

According to MTN South Africa, the cable has a design capacity of up to 180 TBps on key parts of the system, and will deliver much-needed internet capacity, reliability, and improved internet performance 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 millions of people.

The mobile network operator also added that the cable is in line with its ambition to roll out a total of 135,000 km of proprietary fibre by 2025, generating up to US$1 billion in revenue and becoming the number one African fibre player.