Facebook improves connectivity in the African region with an undersea internet cable

As part of a plan to develop the Internet infrastructure, Facebook with its regional and global partners announced the laying of a new segment of the 2Africa Pearls submarine cable, which will connect three continents - Europe, Asia and Africa. Thanks to the new segment, the 2Africa cable system will be more than 45 thousand kilometers long - along with the Pacific Southern Cross, it will become one of the longest systems ever built in the world.

Africa is today the least connected continent, as only a quarter of its 1.3 billion people are online. Therefore, back in 2020, Facebook announced the expansion of the African Internet infrastructure within the framework of the 2Africa project. The system will provide three times the network capacity of all submarine cables serving Africa today combined.

2Africa is expected to increase the continent's population with Internet access to 1.2 billion. With the addition of the Pearls segment, the system will unite them with another 1.8 billion people - in total, it will be, in one way or another, used by 3 billion people, or about 36% of the world's population.

Africa Pearls will provide additional ground connection points in Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia. Overall, 2Africa will provide a better connection between Africa and the rest of the world, as well as cross-connect between 33 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

In the past year and a half, the importance of connecting to the Internet has become more evident than ever before, since literally billions of people worked and continue to work without leaving their homes during the pandemic, study remotely and maintain contact with loved ones. Facebook continues to invest in submarine cables in Africa and beyond. The company intends to continue to create innovative solutions such as fiber-optic "superhighways".