MTN South Africa and MTN GlobalConnect, in partnership with the 2Africa consortium, which includes China Mobile International, Meta, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, center3, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC, are pleased to land the 45,000 km 2Africa cable in Yzerfontein and Duynefontein, South Africa.
For MTN GlobalConnect, this landing is the first in a series of six across five countries: South Africa, Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Ghana. It will allow MTN GlobalConnect to showcase, in a tangible manner, the importance of connectivity and creating cross-border networks that connect Africa to the rest of the world. The 2Africa cable connection will go live in 2023.
This subsea cable will lay the foundation for improved global internet access, connecting people and continents. Once live, it will play a big part in delivering much-needed capacity to Africa from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The 2Africa landing is one of several cable landings taking place across 46 locations in 33 countries.
Our target, which is underpinned by MTN’s Ambition 2025 strategy, is to roll out a total of 135,000 km of proprietary fiber by 2025, generating up to US$1 billion in revenue. This will entrenchMTN as the number one African fiber player by building subsea and terrestrial scalable capacity and resilience.
This cable landing adds another milestone to the digital pathways built around Africa, making telecommunications accessible and available, and will support the western and eastern parts of Africa, once completed in 2023 and 2024 respectively. This means that South African service providers can acquire capacity in carrier-neutral data centers or open-access cable landing stations on a fair and equitable basis. This will support the development of a healthy internet ecosystem by facilitating improved internet access for businesses and consumers alike.
MTN GlobalConnect, which is the 2Africa landing party in Duynefontein and Yzerfontein, has partnered with MTN South Africa to complete the landing on South African soil. The Yzerfontein landing will support the 2Africa West cable and the MTN South Africa landing station in Duynefontein will support the 2Africa East cable.
The cable, with a design capacity of up to 180 tbsp. on key parts of the system, will deliver much-needed internet capacity, reliability and improved internet performance across large parts of Africa; supplement the fast-growing capacity demand in the Middle East; and underpin the further growth of 4G, 5G and fixed broadband access for millions of people.
We are proud to form part of a consortium that is aligned to delivering on our Ambition 2025 strategy: leading digital solutions for Africa’s progress, by investing in connectivity to improve global economic growth, while uplifting the livelihoods of many in South Africa and throughout the rest of Africa.
