Second submarine internet cable to land in Namibia

Namibia will receive its second submarine fibre-optic internet cable this year, which promises to enhance the reliability of increased internet bandwidth for the country, and for the rest of southern Africa. Like the West Africa Cable System (WACS) that landed at Swakopmund a decade ago, the new Equiano cable is about 14 000km long, and will span from Portugal to South Africa with nine branching units, of which one branch is Namibia, through Swakopmund.

The entire project will be completed by 2022 at a cost of about N$6 billion. Namibia's investment into the project is about N$260 million, which includes a N$28 million cable station under construction at Swakopmund. The project is a partnership between Paratus Namibia, Telecom Namibia and Demshi Investments.

Namibia is expected to receive the cable in September from its landing place at the Swakopmund waterfront, and then a 1,2km laying to the station situated in the Ocean View suburb, from where it will continue its network into southern Africa. At the announcement on Wednesday at Swakopmund, Paratus Namibia managing director Andre Hall said 'Equiano' will substantially increase the international data capacity (20 times more than WACS) to Namibia at 12 terabytes per second.

Hall said, the Covid-19 pandemic has proven to be an accelerated adoption of the change in our daily lives as concepts like working from home, online learning, adoption of crypto currencies and online shopping are but a few. Connectivity both nationally and internationally are at the heart of these concepts, and submarine cables are the highways that make it all possible.

Telecom Namibia CEO Stanley Shanapinda said the collaboration affirms that strategic partnerships between local network providers will promote economic growth and digital transformation, while accelerating Namibia's participation in the fourth industrial revolution. This is important for Namibia. It is part of our ongoing commitment to connecting the Namibian people with faster, more reliable internet connections. We will experience, first-hand, the positive impact this increased capacity and redundancy will have on our country and our economy. We will continue to enhance routing diversity to minimise loss of traffic in the event of a failure on any of the submarine cables. It is crucial to highlight that Telecom Namibia does not only carry local traffic, but we ensure internet connectivity for various landlocked countries in the SADC [Southern African Development Community] region.

Erongo governor Neville Andre said the region and the coast's contribution to the national economy has grown with the investment. He applauded the prospects of a bigger variety of telecommunication products and services for the people, that is more efficient, faster and more reliable. This all is also good for local competition within the sector.

In 2019, Google first announced its sub-sea cable project, Equiano would connect Africa with Europe running along the west coast of Africa.

Paratus is the landing party for the Namibia branch of Equiano, and is a leading pan-African full-service network operator with operations in six SADC countries. Its extended network provides a satellite connectivity-focused service in 22 African countries and an additional 4 000 satellite connections across the continent.

According to Paratus Group CEO Barney Harmse, the additional capacity offered by the Equiano cable, the largest on the African continent, further strengthens the Paratus SADC footprint and European network connection, as well as the operator's long-term growth strategy.