An eagerly-awaited submarine cable linking West Africa to Europe has gone live, paving the way for cheaper and more reliable internet access in one of the world’s fastest-growing telecoms markets, its operators said on Friday.
The 7,000 km fibre optic Main One Cable runs from Portugal to Nigeria and Ghana, and also branches out to Morocco, the Canary Islands, Senegal and Ivory Coast. The Main One Cable Company says it delivers more than ten times the broadband capacity of the South Atlantic Terminal, Nigeria’s sole existing undersea cable, and 20 times the entire satellite capacity of sub-Saharan Africa.
An expanding network and falling prices are expected to fuel explosive growth in mobile broadband in Africa over the next few years, particularly Nigeria, which has overtaken South Africa to become the continent’s largest mobile telecoms market.