[imageource:gencraftai]

Africa is getting lank connected as the development of new submarine internet cables around the continent has ‘significantly’ increased its connection to the rest of the world in the last few years.

According to a report by Digital Council Africa, total international bandwidth reaching the continent increased from 12.2Tbit/s to 52Tbit/s between 2019 and 2023.

During the same period, average throughput increased from 4.6Tbit/s to 18.3Tbit/s, with peak traffic going all the way up from 7.6Tbit/s to 30.7Tbit/s. While impressive, these figures are likely to only increase in the coming years, with Facebook’s 2Africa cable also currently slinking its way to us across the ocean floor, and should be completed by the end of the year.

Spanning 45,000 km and a design capacity of up to 180Tbit/s, 2Africa will connect 33 countries through 46 landing points across Africa, Europe and Asia. That’s one massive spiderweb of information sharing.

As Africa gets more connected to the globe, the improvement to the continent’s economy, and by default the people, is already starting to show. The Digital Council Africa report ‘expanded capacity opportunities’ points toward increased ‘content delivery networks, cloud services and software-as-a-service providers’ as some of the benefits.

“Submarine systems, terrestrial fibre and data centre investments make Africa the top-growing bandwidth market globally,” the report said. “Africa experienced the most rapid growth of international internet bandwidth, growing at a compound annual rate of 44% between 2019 and 2023.”

“Driven by streaming video usage and growth in traffic across app categories, both average and peak international internet traffic increased at a compound annual rate of 30% between 2019 and 2023, slightly above the 28% compounded annual growth rate in bandwidth over the same period.”

All of this Netflix and TikTok is being brought to Africa via 72 active submarine cables operating currently. The report also notes that by laying their own cables, ‘hyperscalers’ like Meta, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are gradually becoming serious roleplayers in the undersea cable system.

“In sub-Saharan Africa, Google’s Equiano cable is already operational, and the imminent launch of 2Africa underscores their transformative potential in further enhancing connectivity and fostering economic development.”

“This high-capacity cable, spanning 15 000km and featuring 12 fibre pairs with a design capacity of 144Tbps, provides approximately 20 times more capacity than existing Europe-to-South Africa cables.”

As one of the most developed economies in Africa, the increase in digital access to the rest of the world is going to be crucial in growing South Africa, so the more cables the better.

Until we can lay our very own cable, 2OV will stay with our partners, RSAWeb, to connect us with the global vibe. If you need a connection to the world, RSAWeb has the ADSL , Fibre, Mobile Data or Cloud Solution for you.

[source:techcentral]