The world’s longest dorsal in the Internet has finally landed on European soil. The “2africa” consortium, led by Meta (ex-Facebook) with international operators Orange, Vodafone, China Mobile, MTN, STC, Telecom Egypt or Wiocc, announced the first landing of this cable on the Italian coast, in this case at Genoa.
With its 45,000 km, it will be the longest submarine cable never deployed, in the service of communities which depend on the Internet for services ranging from education for health care and business, and which will all benefit from the economic and social advantages arising from this increased connectivity.
The system, operational in 2024, will have a nominal capacity of up to 180 TB/s and with a spatial distribution multiplexing technology allowing the deployment of 16 pairs of fibers.
An optical insertion/extraction multiplexer reconfigurable to selective switching depending on the wavelength, intended to allow more flexible management of the capacity will be added to other equipment.
In Europe, the “2Africa” cable will interconnect Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and France with continents, African and Asian.
In France, it was Marseille, one of the world’s largest coastal hub, which was selected to land the cable.
In total, the “2africa” cable should help participate in the connectivity of three billion people worldwide, or 36% of the world’s population.
