2023-08-19 16:02:00
(Ecofin Agency) – Since 2011, Congo has been served by a single international fiber optic submarine cable, the WACS. Failures that frequently occur on this infrastructure cause disruption of Internet services.
The 2Africa fiber optic submarine cable from the eponymous consortium led by the American company Meta landed on the Congolese coast on Thursday 17 August. This was announced by the telecommunications operator Airtel Congo, which built the new modular landing station housing the infrastructure in Pointe-Noire.
We are delighted to share exceptional news with you! Yesterday a press conference was held at (ARPCE) where the general managers of ARPCE and Airtel had the pleasure of announcing the arrival of the submarine cable ‘2Africa’ in Congo, an ambitious project of huge proportion. pic.twitter.com/DjWLIZV8x3
— Airtel Congo B (@airtel_congob) August 18, 2023
2Africa becomes the 2nd international submarine cable to which the Republic of Congo connects, thus strengthening its national broadband infrastructure. It comes on top of the WACS (West Africa Cable System) cable to which the country connected in 2011 and on which it mainly depends for high-speed Internet services. Failures that frequently occur on this infrastructure cause disruption of Internet services.
« A single cable is not enough, the WACS will continue to operate, we will unload it and the Congo Telecom network will always be in demand. However, we need all networks, redundancy will be mandatory for operators in the sector. We will refuse that an operator is subscribed to only one network in order to satisfy the needs in terms of capacity and to free ourselves from any form of cut“, explained Louis-Marc Sakala, CEO of the Post and Electronic Communications Regulatory Agency (ARPCE).
Once in service, the 2Africa cable should not only reduce the cost of Internet services in Congo, but also extend the reach of these services to millions more people. According to the latest statistics from the regulator, the country has 3.05 million Internet users, a penetration rate of 54%.
Isaac K. Kassouwi
Read also:
07/28/2023 — 2Africa fiber optic submarine cable lands in Angola
30/05/2022 — Cameroon and Congo finalize their fiber optic interconnection
1692473434
#Republic #Congo #connects #fiber #optic #submarine #cable
