Announcing the Completion of the Core 2Africa System: Building the Future of Connectivity Together

This post announces the completion of the core 2Africa infrastructure, the world's longest open access subsea cable system. It details the unprecedented scale and reach, connecting 3 continents and 33 countries, enabling connectivity for 3 billion people. The post highlights the engineering innovations, including the deployment of 16-fiber-pair SDM technology (double the capacity of older systems), undersea optical wavelength switching, increased burial depth, dual trunk powering architectures, and branching unit switching for reliability. It also describes the logistical challenges, involving 35 offshore vessels and extensive shore-end operations. The economic impact is quantified, with an expected contribution of $36.9 billion to Africa's GDP within 2-3 years, driven by increased bandwidth, lower wholesale prices, market competition, and support for modern digital infrastructure like cloud services and 5G.