O Facebook, the Chinese telecommunications company China Mobile and the MTN Group will build a submarine cable more comprehensive than initially planned, which joins the recently announced connection to the Canary Islands, which will bring a direct connection to 35 countries including Angola.
“Facebook's significant investment in 2Africa builds on other investments we've made across the continent, including infrastructure investments in South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” according to a company statement.
Technological companies Facebook and Alphabet, which owns Google, support 80% of the most recent investments in transatlantic connections, seeking to take advantage of the growing demand for fast data transfer that is used in all segments, from medical consultations to the transmission of movies or exchange of messages on social networks.
Investments in recent years, amounting to nearly US$1 billion, follow on from the US$20 billion invested by telephone companies in submarine fiber optic networks following the strong expansion of technology companies in the 1990s.
The production of the first segments of this underwater infrastructure has already started in the United States of America, and will include a cable with 37 kilometers to connect Africa, Europe and the Middle East.
Link 2 Africa should be operational in 2024 and will guarantee more than the current capacity of all the cables that serve the African continent, the statement added by the financial information agency added.
