COUNTRY FOCUS: ANGOLA
“
TRADITIONALLY SEEN
AS AN OIL-PRODUCING NATION,
ANGOLA IS EMERGING AS A
TELECOMMUNICATIONS LEADER.
From a connectivity perspective, since 2012
the West Africa Cable System (WACS) has
been a vital ‘digital bridge’ for SSA, providing
carrier-level services to operators in the
region across a dozen countries. Managed
by a consortium of companies, it extends
more than 14,000 km between Yzerfontein
in South Africa and London in the United
Kingdom and includes 11 landing points in
Africa and three in Europe.
Augmenting Africa’s
Global Connectivity
As much as WACS is an essential artery
for the digital connectivity and economic
development of countries connecting
to the cable, Africa is about to see the
addition of new infrastructure, centred in
Angola, to augment its global connectivity.
Traditionally, data has travelled between
Africa and the Americas (the largest centre
for the production and aggregation of digital
content and services), via WACS through
Europe. With the South Atlantic Cable
System (SACS), expected to be completed in
mid-2018, the first direct link between Africa
and South America will be created.
António Nunes, CEO – Angola Cables
received, on subsea fibre optic cable systems
between Angola and Brazil is about 350
milliseconds, due to the trafficking of the
Internet via Europe and the USA. With SACS,
this will be reduced fivefold to approximately
63 milliseconds. In effect, this will create a
‘continental shift’ in terms of Internet access
A subsea cable extending more than
6,500km between Brazil and Angola, SACS
will be 100% owned and managed by
Angola Cables, already an active member
of the WACS consortium. Combined with
Monet – another new investment from
Angola Cables in South America, the 10,556
km cable system between Brazil and USA
links the cities of São Paulo, Fortaleza and
Miami and has been operational since
January 2018 – SACS represents a paradigm
shift for Africa and the Americas in terms of
connectivity and collaboration.
Currently, the latency, or the time lag
between a data packet being sent and
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