Earlier this week, Telecom operator Sonatel announced that it had won a contract to connect Senegal to a fifth subsea cable – Meta’s 2Africa.
The fifth subsea cable, namely 2Africa, was announced during the first African visit carried out by Christel Heydemann, the newly appointed CEO of Orange Group, Sonatel’s parent company.
Meta’s 2Africa project was launched in May 2020 in response to the growing demand for broadband connectivity in Africa.
2Africa was announced in February 2020 by a consortium which included Meta (than Facebook), Orange, STC, China Mobile International, MTN GlobalConnect, Vodafone, Telecom Egypt and WIOCC.
Reports indicated that Alcatel Submarine Networks was in charge of its deployment.
According to the operator, the 45,000 kilometres-long infrastructure will be operational between 2023 and 2024.
Its commissioning should enable Sonatel to significantly increase its broadband connectivity capacity to meet growing demand. In addition, the new infrastructure should also facilitate the deployment of 4G, 5G, and fixed broadband access.
The new cable will add to the four other subsea cables already operated by Sonatel, namely, SAT-3, ACE, Atlantis-2, and SHARE.
Recently, Sonatel upgraded its Rufisque data centre by adding a second room. These investments are said to be part of the Orange subsidiary’s ambition to provide the highest quality services in Senegal and cover every region with 4G services by late 2023.
