The Equiano subsea internet cable that landed ashore in Melkbosstrand outside Cape Town earlier this year could cut South Africa’s internet costs by around 20%, according to Google.
Equiano arrived in South Africa in early August, its final destination after already having landed in Togo, Nigeria, and Namibia.
The submarine internet cable, stretching 15,000km from Portugal to South Africa along the west coast of the continent, features 12 fibre pairs and a design capacity of 150Tbps. Equiano has 20 times more network capacity than the last cable built to serve this region, according to Nitin Gajria, the managing director of Google in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“There’s a huge positive knock-on effect, in terms of digital economies, job generation… but, at the end of the day, for the end-user, the knock-on effect of this [Equiano] is faster internet and lower cost internet,” said Gajria on Wednesday at the AfricaTech festival held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
“So, depending on which country you’re in, what geography you’re in, and the various partnerships along the way, this would be somewhere in the range of 20% cheaper internet locally.”
Equiano will start feeding more network capacity through the west coast of Africa – and South Africa – in a phased approach, said Gajria, with the first phase expected to begin in December.
“What the cable does is it brings in a lot more network capacity to the continent. What we’re now doing is working with partners to bring this capacity further afield. This involves us working with ISPs, telcos, other infrastructure players in the ecosystem to bring this capacity further afield,” said Gajria.
“One of the objectives for us is to start driving more connectivity and getting more people online and getting faster, cheaper internet into more parts of Africa, including the rural areas.”
Of the approximately 1.1 billion people living in Sub-Saharan Africa, only 300 million are online, added Gajria. “And even those 300 million people, they don’t really have the full internet experience that many of us do.”
The problem in getting more people in Africa connected to the internet involves network availability, which is becoming less of an issue as telecommunication providers expand, said Gajria, access to an internet-enabled device, and access to fast, affordable data.
“So, think of it [Equiano] as bringing in a lot more supply of network capacity into the continent. What that will do is make [internet] speeds faster and make data cheaper, so it works on both sides of the equation,” said Gajria.
The landing of Equiano in South Africa coincides with the laying of the 2Africa cable, the longest subsea cable in the world, which recently touched down in Marseille, France. The 2Africa cable will connect 33 countries and the continents of Africa, Europe and Asia once live in 2023, further improving capacity in the regions it touches.