2Africa

2Africa is an international submarine telecommunications cable that circumnavigates the coastline of Africa to interconnect Europe and the Middle East. The 2Africa cable project is being funded by a consortium of eight global partners.

The system will be one of the first to use spatial division multiplexing (SDM1) and has a design capacity of 180 Tbps across 16 fiber pairs. When complete, 2Africa will be the largest subsea cable in the world, at 45,000 kilometers long, connecting 46 cable landing stations across 33 countries.

2Africa passes from Europe through the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean, and then back into Europe via the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.

The system is to be constructed by Alcatel Submarine Networks. and is intended to be operational in 2024.

Cable ownership
2Africa is owned by a consortium consisting of eight members, namely:


 * Meta Platforms
 * China Mobile
 * MTN Group
 * Orange S.A.
 * Saudi Telecom Company
 * Vodafone Group Plc
 * West Indian Ocean Cable Company

Landing points & Operators
In September 2021, 2Africa announced a new segment of the cable called '2Africa PEARLS', which is planned to extend to the Persian Gulf, India and Pakistan.