Facebook is investing in undersea cables as part of our ongoing effort to build the infrastructure that will carry internet traffic and help bring more people online to faster internet. Today we are excited to announce, together with regional and global partners, a new subsea cable segment called 2Africa Pearls, which connects three continents – Africa, Europe and Asia. This extension will bring the total length of the 2Africa cable system to more than 45,000 kilometers, making it the longest undersea cable system ever used.
Africa is currently the least connected continent, with only a quarter of its 1.3 billion people connected to the Internet. For this reason we have in 2020 that we are building on our investments in expanding the Internet infrastructure in Africa via the 2Africa submarine cable. The 2Africa submarine cable system will provide almost three times the total network capacity of all submarine cables for Africa today.
With 2Africa we had planned to increase connectivity to 1.2 billion people. With the addition of Pearls, the system will provide connectivity to another 1.8 billion people, making a total of 3 billion people, or about 36 percent of the world’s population. 2Africa Pearls office adds several new landing locations in Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia. Overall, 2Africa will significantly increase connectivity within Africa and better connect Africa to the rest of the world as it will ultimately connect 33 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
The past 18 months have highlighted the importance of connectivity as billions of people around the world rely on the internet to work, go to school, and stay connected with the people they care about. We continue to invest in undersea cables in Africa and beyond as communities and businesses thrive when there is a widely accessible Internet. Facebook continues to build innovative solutions like these important fiber optic highways so that everyone can enjoy the economic, educational, and social benefits of a digitally connected world.
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