Subsea cable sector booms as operators plan new $ 10 billion investment by 2024

THE international subsea cable sector is booming with over 450 submarine cables carrying about 95 per cent of all international telecoms service traffic, together with the ever- increasing data traffic generated by the hyperscale cloud companies and big streaming content providers.

Reason more and more new submarine systems are either being deployed or planned to help satisfy the insatiable demand for greater capacity, scale and reach. The globe is already spanned by more than 1.5 million miles of underwater fibre optical cables that are practical proof of the whimsical movie maxim “if you build it they will come.”

According to a recent industry report by telecoms market research and consulting house, Telegeography, titled: “A 2022 update on Interconnection Geography,” it noted that since 2017, Africa- Europe connectivity has been at about 80 per cent of total potential capacity. It however, noted a disparity between the North and South African international connections.

Telegeography said North Africa’s international connectivity to Europe is very close to 100 per cent but sub- Saharan Africa’s connectivity to Europe has dropped to about 60 per cent of total potential capacity.

Already from the about $ 1 billion investment some four years back, today, the investments in the various submarine cables that have landed in Nigeria have exceeded $ 3 billion going by available data.

Specifically, the cost of SAT3 fibre optic cable, which now belongs to ntel, is put at $ 600 million. MTN’S WACS costs $ 650 million; ACE cable, by Dolphin Telecoms, is worth $ 700 million; while Mainone gulped $ 300 million. The cost of Globacom’s Glo1 cable is estimated at $ 250 million, Glo 2 is expected to be in that range.

Though the estimated investment of Equiano cable is not public, Google informed that the facility is part of the $ 1 billion investment support for digital transformation across Africa.

Meta’s ( Facebook) $ 1 billion 37,000- kilometer undersea cable is coming to Africa cum Nigeria and should go live by 2023.