Recent African cable news includes a milestone for Namibia with the inauguration of its Equiano cable station and plans for a 2Africa cable landing in Pakistan.
Telecom Namibia, at the moment celebrating 32 years of service, is said to be leading the celebrations of the Namibian activation of Google’s Equiano undersea cable, which, local news reports suggest, positions the country to become a regional information and communication technology (ICT) hub. The Telecom Namibia Equiano Cable Station was inaugurated this week in the western Swakopmund.
The high-capacity cable links Namibia to Europe via Portugal and to the rest of Africa by way of Cape Town and Johannesburg in neighbouring South Africa.
According to Stanley Shanapinda, Telecom Namibia CEO, his company has implemented a 100G link via Equiano between Swakopmund and Johannesburg, easing congestion on terrestrial routes and reducing latency to South Africa.
Meanwhile another African cable is going even further as Pakistan telco firm Transworld Associates (TWA) announces plans to land the 2Africa cable in Karachi, Pakistan.
At 45,000 kilometres, it is the world’s largest subsea cable network and will connect 33 countries with 46 landing points in Europe and Asia.
In this case an extension to the original 2Africa cable, known as 2Africa Pearls, is involved. Announced in 2021, it offers plans for further landing points in Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia.
China Mobile International and Meta are the consortium parties responsible for the Karachi portion of the cable. They have contracted Transworld Associates to operate and own the landing.
TWA says it plans to connect a Tier III-quality carrier-neutral data centre collocated at the telco’s cable landing station, to the 2Africa cable and other cable systems.
Karachi is currently home to at least seven cables, with more going live or landing soon.
Transworld Associates owns the Transworld-1 cable, connecting Pakistan to the UAE and Oman. It is also a consortium member of the SeaMeWe-5 submarine cable project.
