Grace Ashiru
Openserve will now have access to a new underwater system enabling connectivity to Europe due to the landing, which will increase the variety available for international communications.
With our current technology, Openserve will start with a capacity of 12Tbp, but upgrades will make 16Tbps possible.
Beukes adds that the entrance of Equiano will also significantly impact the local economy through the promotion of digital inclusion. This will be accomplished by making connectivity available to more South Africans.
Equiano is a trade route that begins in western Europe and continues to South Africa along the west coast of Africa.
As opposed to the more common practice of switching at the wavelength level, Equiano is the first submarine cable to implement optical switching at the level of the fiber pair.
The capacity of the private underwater cable is 144 Terabytes per second, which is 20 times the capacity of the cable that was constructed previously to provide service to the region. Equiano arrived in Swakopmund, Namibia, in July. The cable starts on the coast of Portugal and ends in South Africa. There are landing stations on St. Helena Island, Nigeria, Togo, and Namibia.
We are devoted to assisting in Africa’s transition to a digital economy, and we are thrilled about the opportunities that will become available following the completion of the final leg of the Equiano undersea cable’s journey. We have partnered with Telkom/Openserve on this initiative and hope it will be a great catalyst to help grow the economy,” commented Nitin Gajria, Google Sub-Saharan Africa MD, on the landing of Equiano in South Africa.
In the long run, this will result in economic gains brought about by expanding the information and communications technology industry and the digital economy.
It is anticipated that the Google Equiano undersea cable will become operational sometime in 2022.
