Cape Town - Get ready for faster internet speeds and cheaper internet prices following the arrival in SA of Equiano, the continent’s highest capacity subsea internet cable.
The project is a partnership between Telkom’s Openserve, Africa’s largest wholesale infrastructure provider, and Google.
Equiano, a Google investment, is a cable which links Africa to Europe via the west coast of Africa. Its infrastructure is based on space-division (SDM) technology designed to simplify the allocation of cable capacity.
Expectations are that the installation will help drive digital transformation across the continent with significant economic impact for the country.
SA is the final stop for the cable which first landed in St Helena a year ago. Branches of the cable have also landed in Togo, Nigeria and Namibia this year.
Openserve chief executive Althon Beukes said the cable would ultimately transform the connectivity experience from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to the end-user.
ISPs would be able to provide lower retail prices and the end-user would enjoy seamless connectivity, lower latency and faster internet speeds, he said.
During an event to mark the landing of the cable at Openserve’s cable station facility in Melkbosstrand, Google South Africa country director Alistair Mokoena said the cable would not only improve internet speeds and affordability, but also help to support the growth of the African continent’s digital economy.
“In SA, we anticipate that it will indirectly contribute to the creation of 180 000 jobs and increase GDP up to $7 billion (about R120bn) by 2025.”
Speaking tongue-in-cheek, Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel said the project enables South Africans to have fun.
“The cable will enable more streaming of music, movies, more Zoom, team calls for families and friends and more electronic games for teens.”
Patel said the cable would assist with carbon emission reduction as more people were using digital ways of working and travelling.
“The estimate is that this project will contribute to a carbon reduction of 900 000 tons of carbon emissions between 2022 and 2025.”
Telkom group chief executive Serame Taukobong said that the connectivity that would be unlocked through Equiano would have an immense impact on the ICT sector and the domestic economy overall.
“Making connectivity more attainable will also allow small businesses to embrace digital innovation and fully step into the digital economy.”
Details of the implementation plan have yet to be released.
The cable derives its name from Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist who was enslaved as a boy in what is now Nigeria, but purchased his freedom in 1766.
As a freedman, or an enslaved person who legally gained freedom, in London, Equiano was active among leaders of the anti-slave trade movement in the 1780s.
He published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, which depicted the horrors of slavery and helped gain passage of the British Slave Trade Act 1807, which abolished the slave trade. He died in Westminster in 1797.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za