Facebook’s 2Africa Project Gets Even Bigger

The submarine cable planned by Facebook and a number of network operators around Africa will be extended again, so that it will ultimately be the longest cable in the world. In total, it will extend over more than 45,000 kilometers in the future.

As announced today by Facebook and the other companies involved, the project called 2Africa will be expanded once again for an undersea cable spanning the continent. Until its completion, the project, which consists of several strands and various branches, will be the largest project of its kind, they say.

The consortium behind the project, which consists of China Mobile, Facebook, MTN Global Connect, Orange, STC, TelecomEgypt. Vodafone and WIOCC, want to add another segment, which will be called 2Africa Pearls in the future. It then connects Africa with Europe and Asia. When the project was first announced, there was talk of laying a total of around 37,000 kilometers of cable on the bottom of the ocean around Africa.

Submarine cables for more than 3 billion

It was not until August that there was talk of adding new branches to the Comoros Islands, the Seychelles and Angola as well as to the south of Nigeria. The new segment increases the total length to more than 45,000 kilometers. Connections to India, Pakistan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq and Kuwait as well as Saudi Arabia are added.

The extension of the cable structure through new connections in various countries increases the number of potential users considerably. As Kevin Salvadori, who oversees the project at Facebook as Vice President of Network Infrastructure, announced that the company initially wanted to reach around 1.2 billion people. The expansion called Pearls will more than double the number of people who will in future access the global Internet via 2Africa to around three billion.