Google’s Equiano subsea cable, which will connect Lisbon, Portugal and Cape Town, South Africa with branching units along the west coast of Africa, will make Togo its first landing spot.
Representing the State, Société d’Infrastructures Numériques (SIN), a public telecommunications asset company, has strategically partnered with CSquared, an open access wholesale broadband infrastructure company, to create a joint venture – CSquared Woezon, which will be in charge of maintaining and operating the Equiano submarine cable as well as the existing e-Government and Communauté Electrique du Bénin (CEB) terrestrial optic fiber network located on the Togolese territory. Regarding the sale of international capacity, CSquared Woezon will provide open access to all national and regional operators on an objective, transparent and non-discriminatory commercial basis.
Nitin Gajria, Managing Director of Google Sub-Saharan Africa commented, “The landing of Equiano affirms Google’s commitment to the African continent, to support Africa’s digital transformation. We are thrilled that Togo will be Equiano’s first landing on the African continent, as it aligns with the country’s continuing efforts to promote digital inclusion for Africa. We look forward to working closely with the Togolese Government and The Ministry of Digital Economy and Transformation as they continue to build their digital infrastructure.”
First subsea fiber cable to be landed on St Helena island
The first fiber optic cable is expected to be landed on St. Helena, an island in the South Atlantic ocean that is a British Overseas Territory.
The fiber connection will be a spur from the main trunk of the Equiano cable, a new private subsea cable backed by Google that will connect Africa with Europe. The spur will be 1,140km long.
St. Helena is located 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) east of Rio de Janeiro and 1,950 kilometres (1,210 mi) west of the nearest point in Africa (the mouth of the Cunene River on the border between Namibia and Angola). The island has a population of 4,500.
http://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/subsea-cable-to-be-landed-on-st-helena/?highlight=equiano
Google announces Equiano cable from Portugal to South Africa
Google unveiled plans for new private subsea cable connecting Lisbon, Portugal and Cape Town, South Africa with branching units along the west coast of Africa.
The Equiano subsea cable, which is named for Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist who was enslaved as a boy, will include a branching unit to Nigeria.
Google plans to use state-of-the-art space-division multiplexing (SDM) technology to achieve approximately 20 times more network capacity than the last cable built to serve this region.
The cable will be the first to incorporate optical switching at the fiber-pair level, rather than the traditional approach of wavelength-level switching. Google says this design will greatly simplify the allocation of cable capacity.
Equiano is fully funded by Google. Alcatel Submarine Networks was awarded a contract in Q4 2018.
