Equiano Subsea Cable By Google Lands In South Africa

Just a month after landing in Namibia, Google has landed its Equiano undersea cable in Melkbosstrand, Western Cape, South Africa.

The cable system, connecting South Africa and Portugal is fully funded by Google being its third private international cable after Dunant and Curie, and its 14th subsea cable investment globally.

The Equiano subsea internet cable is part of Google’s $1 billion program to build digital capacity on the continent.

The Equiano is the first subsea cable to incorporate optical switching at the fiber-pair level, rather than the traditional approach of wavelength-level switching. This greatly simplifies the allocation of cable capacity, giving the flexibility to add and reallocate it in different locations as needed.

The cable serves as an internet infrastructure connection between South Africa, Portugal and several other countries including Nigeria. It has a design capacity of 144Tbit/s, making it the highest-capacity internet cable ever landed on the African continent.

The Equiano cable will start in Portugal in western Europe, run more than 12,000km along the West Coast of Africa and initially land in Lomé, Togo; Lagos, Nigeria; Swakopmund, Namibia; Rupert’s Bay, Saint Helena and Melkbosstrand, South Africa; establishing a valuable new high-capacity connection between the African continent and Europe.