Google lands first subsea cable in Africa to spur digital access – The Peninsula

Google lands first subsea cable in Africa to spur digital access – The Peninsula

Google landed a submarine cable in Togo, the first nation in West Africa to introduce commercial fifth-generation mobile services.

The Equiano subsea internet cable, part of Google’s $1 billion program to build digital capacity on the continent, was connected to the nation of 8 million people on Friday. The conduit will land in Nigeria, Namibia and South Africa later this year, linking Africa to Europe via Portugal.

The new cable is expected to help Togo double internet speeds by 2025 and reduce Internet prices by about 14%, according to research from Africa Practice and Genesis Analytics commissioned by Google.

"Our vision is to become a digital hub and we need connectivity,” Togolese Digital Economy Minister Cina Lawson said in a March 15 interview. "We’re going to have an awful lot of capacity through this cable. We’re going to be able to retail capacity to other countries.”

Once operational, the cable will offer 20 times more bandwidth than any other country in West Africa, and help create almost 37,000 new jobs by 2025, Africa Practice and Genesis said.

"That kind of Internet speeds puts you on the same level of competitiveness as your counterparts in the western world,” the head of the United Nations Economic Commission