Seacom boosts Africa’s economy with Equiano cable

Seacom, a leading telecommunications and managed services provider in Africa, has launched its services on the Equiano subsea cable after the cable landed in Cape Town in August 2022. With latency speeds of +/-110ms between South Africa and Europe, it offers private line services that make it the fastest direct route between the continents.

This launch marks a significant milestone in Africa’s digital transformation, meeting the continent’s growing data requirements, enabling cross-border digital trade, and offering citizens and enterprises new opportunities.

According to Prenesh Padayachee, Seacom’s group chief digital officer, “This launch results from years of project negotiations and planning, driven by a goal to be ready to offer quality service to our customers from day one. The Equiano subsea cable represents a new stage in Africa’s digital transformation, meeting Africa’s growing data requirements, enabling cross-border digital trade, and offering citizens and enterprises new opportunities.”

The Equiano subsea cable, which stretches 15 000 kilometres from Portugal to South Africa, boasts 12 fibre pairs and has a design capacity of 144 Tbps, making it one of the highest-capacity cables serving Africa. It also has landing stations in Rupert’s Bay, St. Helena; Lomé, Togo; Lagos, Nigeria; and Swakopmund, Namibia, from which branching units will extend connectivity to other African countries.

Seacom has positioned itself as the go-to Pan-African telecommunications provider with direct access to the European market, offering an alternative route to and from the continent that accommodates even greater volumes of data traffic and ensures greater uptime availability.

As part of the service available to wholesale and enterprise clients from March, it will offer an express route from Cape Town to Lisbon, providing high-speed connectivity without having data rerouted to other countries during transmission.

The Equiano subsea cable is expected to have a major economic impact in the countries in which it lands, such as faster Internet speeds and an improved user experience. According to a regional economic impact assessment by Africa Practice, commissioned by Google and published in 2021, the cable will increase South Africa’s GDP by $5.8 billion and create 180 000 indirect jobs by 2025.

“Internet penetration and the increased availability of digital services have been proven to directly affect economic growth and prosperity. With this in mind, it’s imperative that we work quickly and efficiently to offer the service our clients need and the quality of service they expect,” said Padayachee.

“Seacom is very proud to be at the forefront of this development, and we look forward to how it will enable us to expand our operations and product offerings across Africa.”

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