Increase in Broadband Penetration Imminent as 2Africa Consortium Extends New Cable Branches to South-east Nigeria

Emma Okonji

Nigeria’s current broadband penetration level of 39.97 per cent, with broadband subscriptions figure of 76.29 million, as at June 2021, as released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), are likely going to soar in the coming years, following the recent extension of its new broadband cable branches to South-east Nigeria, by 2Africa Consortium.

Nigeria had in December 2018, surpassed its 30 per cent broadband penetration target across the country, and further increased the penetration level to 45.93 per cent in October 2020, before sliding to 39.59 per cent in May 2021 and reached 39.97 per cent penetration level in June 2021.
Analysts are however of the view that the recent extension of broadband cable to South-east Nigeria by 2Africa Consortium, will further boost broadband penetration across the country.

The 2Africa consortium, which comprises of China Mobile International, Facebook, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, stc, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC, recently announced the addition of four new branches to the 2Africa cable. The branches will extend 2Africa’s connectivity to the Seychelles, the Comoros Islands, and Angola, and bring a new landing to South-east Nigeria. The new branches join the recently announced extension to the Canary Islands.

2Africa, which will be the largest subsea cable project in the world, will deliver faster, more reliable broadband internet service to each country where it lands. Communities that rely on the internet for services from education to healthcare, and business will experience the economic and social benefits that come from this increased connectivity.

Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) has been selected to deploy the new branches, which will increase the number of 2Africa landings to 35 in 26 countries, further improving connectivity into and around Africa. As with other 2Africa cable landings, capacity will be available to service providers at carrier-neutral data centres or open-access cable landing stations on a fair and equitable basis, encouraging and supporting the development of a healthy internet ecosystem.
Marine surveys completed for most of the cable and cable manufacturing is underway, the consortium said in a statement.

Since launching the 2Africa cable in May 2020, the 2Africa consortium has made considerable progress in planning and preparing for the deployment of the cable, which is expected to ‘go live’ late 2023. Most of the subsea route survey activity is now complete. ASN has started manufacturing the cable and building repeater units in its factories in Calais and Greenwich to deploy the first segments in 2022.
According to the statement, one of 2Africa’s key segments, the Egypt terrestrial crossing that interconnects landing sites on the Red and the Mediterranean Seas via two completely diverse terrestrial routes, has been completed ahead of schedule. A third diverse marine path will complement this segment via the Red Sea.

Spokesperson for Facebook, which is a member of the consortium, said: “2Africa is a perfect example of our innovative partnership model where everyone benefits through developing scale infrastructure and shared technology expertise that lead the industry in routes, capacity and flexibility, ultimately providing greater internet reliability across much of the continent, whilst supporting the growth of 4G, 5G, and fixed broadband access for hundreds of millions of people and businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of connectivity as billions of people around the world rely on the internet to work, attend school, and stay connected to the people they care about. With more people using the internet, subsea cables will continue to be a vital investment in advancing connectivity across Africa.”

The mission of Facebook as a member of the consortium, is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. Over two billion people use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger every month to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what is going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

China Mobile International Limited (CMI), a member of 2Africa Consortium, is a wholly-ownedsubsidiary of China Mobile, mainly responsible for the operation of China Mobile’s international business. In order to provide better services to meet the growing demand in the international telecommunications market, China Mobile established a subsidiary, CMI, in December 2010. CMI currently has over 70 terrestrial and submarine cable resources worldwide, with a total international transmission bandwidth of 98T, and more than 180 Point of Presence (PoP).

GlobalConnect, which is also a member of 2Africa Consortium, is a Pan-African digital wholesale and infrastructure services company, and an operating company in the MTN Group. GlobalConnect manages MTN’s international and national major wholesale activities, in addition to offering reliable wholesale and infrastructure solutions for fixed connectivity and wholesale mobility solutions that include international mobile services, Voice, SMS, signalling, roaming and interconnect.

Orange, another member of 2Africa Consortium, is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with sales of 42.3 billion euros in 2020 and 139,000 employees worldwide at 30 June 2021, including 80,000 employees in France. The Group has a total customer base of 263 million customers worldwide at 30 June 2021, including 218 million mobile customers and 22 million fixed broadband customers. The Group is present in 26 countries.

Orange is also a leading provider of global IT and telecommunication services to multinational companies, under the brand Orange Business Services.n