"The initial phase of activation connects Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa, heralding a new era of high-speed, reliable internet access," Airtel Telesonic, the wholesale arm of Airtel Africa, said in a statement on Wednesday.
When completed, the 45 000km 2Africa system will encircle Africa and connect countries across the continent with Europe and Asia.
Airtel Telesonic CEO PD Sarma described the activation of the East African segment of 2Africa, which was built by Alcatel Submarine Networks using the latest fibre-optic transmission technology, as a "monumental step" in bridging the digital divide in Africa.
Wiocc Group, which is an investor in 2Africa, recently announced that it had signed its first customer, FirstNet Technology Services, to carry traffic on the 2Africa cable between Durban and Cape Town.
The launch of the system means there'll be additional redundancy along Africa's east coast, which has experienced a number of fibre breaks affecting other cable systems this year, the most recent being damage caused by a fishing trawler to the Seacom and Eassy cables off the coast of KwaZulu-Natal. This caused extensive disruption to internet services in Kenya and other countries in East Africa and Southern Africa. - © 2024 NewsCentral Media
