Equiano cable adds 144Tbps to Africa capacity

Google’s Equiano undersea cable finally made landfall in South Africa this week, adding a massive 144Tbps bandwidth capacity to the Southern African region.

It already serves the West African region, having landed in Nigeria in April, and now running from Portugal to South Africa, with landing points in Togo and Namibia, among others. Google’s landing partner for the cable, the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC), says that partnering in bringing Equiano to Africa reinforces its  WIOCC’s ability to support clients in extending their reach and capability.

ays WIOCC Group CEO Chris Wood: “Having invested multiple billions of Rand to enhance our 16Tbps-ready, Optical Transport Network-enabled national hyperscale network infrastructure, we are extremely well positioned to provide businesses with access to fully upgradeable, quickly and easily scalable capacity throughout South Africa and into neighbouring countries, over one of the most future-proof networks in the country.”

As a fibre pair owner on the new cable, WIOCC’s Equiano capacity is upgradable fully under its own control. WIOCC owns and manages its own Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (SLTE), choosing to light and upgrade its capacity as it wishes, to meet the needs and demands of its clients.

WIOCC’s Equiano capacity will be extended into a new Open Access Data Centres (OADC – a WIOCC Group company) facility currently undergoing fit-out in Rondebosch, Cape Town, where clients can interconnect with terrestrial infrastructure providers, cloud networks, partners, suppliers and other ecosystem members.

OADC recently announced three new core data centres (DCs) in South Africa – one in Johannesburg and two in Cape Town – to go live by the end of the third quarter of 2022. The company says the three DCs are integral to its core-to-edge, open-access DC offering, which currently includes a Durban location, and 25 up to 150kW OADC Edge DCs offering colocation, rooftop access and high-speed network interconnectivity between facilities at up to 100Gbps.

“Our investment in Equiano continues our long-standing policy of making strategic investments in subsea cables.,” says Wood. “We own almost a third of the >10Tbps EASSy system, which extends from South Africa along Africa’s eastern coastline to Djibouti and Port Sudan; we deliver more capacity than any other carrier on the WACS system, which links South Africa to western Europe and lands in many countries along the west coast of Africa. We are a member of the 2Africa cable, which will bring another high-capacity connectivity option to Africa during 2023/24.”