Submarine cable to connect Africa with the Americas

Cable network operator Angola Cables has announced its intentions to build the world’s first submarine cable network to link South America and Africa, in partnership with infrastructure provider NEC.

The two companies are aiming to launch the fully operational South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) by the end of 2016. Covering the 6000km South Atlantic Ocean between Angola and Brazil, the connection is designed with four pairs of fibre, subsequently achieving capacity of about 40 Tbps, with bandwidths of 100×100 Gbps on each fibre pair.

SACS will be supplemented with another submarine system currently under construction, which will link South America to North America. Cable of the Americas (COTA) will connect Santos and Fortaleza in Brazil to Miami in the USA, therefore indirectly providing Angola and West Africa with a high-speed link to North America.

The network builder also claims that the first transatlantic system in the Southern hemisphere will enable more global connections from Asia and Africa.

“It is the first transatlantic system in the Southern hemisphere, connecting Africa and South America. Since it is an alternative route to the North Atlantic cables, it will allow alternative connections from Asia and Africa to the rest of the world,” it said in a statement.

“Angola Cables’ mission is to transform Angola into one of the major telecommunication hubs in Africa. This new submarine cable, together with our other projects, will help to improve connectivity between Angola and Africa to Latin and North America,” said António Nunes, CEO of Angola Cables. “We will continue to develop our internet highways to enable our telecoms, ISP and enterprise customers to differentiate themselves in today’s competitive and highly-evolving African marketplace.”

According to Angola Cables, the African telecommunications industry is experiencing the highest rate of internet traffic growth in the world today. As a result of the two new submarine cable infrastructures, both Angola Cables and NEC are optimistic that high speed and high capacity international data transmissions will be achieved, encouraging both international trade and economic growth in two booming.