Fiber-optic cable to increase Africa’s mobile coverage by 20% in 2015

We all know Africa has a massive mobile population, right? Well, recent efforts will see a massive increase in internet coverage for this fast-growing population.

Telecom operator Angola Cables has just announced an investment of US$100-million together with Brazil’s Algar Telecom, Antel from Uruguay and Google that will increase mobile coverage to internet by 20% in 2015 of Africa’s population.

The Angolan telecom has already invested US$200-million in 2013 to construct a submarine cable from Africa across the Atlantic Ocean to Brazil.

“The new cable route will be 10,556 km long and have six fiber pairs. According to estimations, it will increase the overall bandwidth of existing subsea cable systems by 64 terabits per second of capacity,” says Angola Cables CEO, Antonio Nunes.

This investment is part of a joint effort to help build the fabric of the internet to sustain the current needs of internet users in the Latin American region and to prepare for increased demands in the future.

Currently, Latin America has a connected population of almost 300 million people and has become one of the fastest-growing regions in the world in terms of internet penetration.

According to the media release, Africa similarly has an estimated population of more than 1 billion people of which half is under 30 years old. Since June 2014, there’s been a 19% internet penetration rate of 172 million users and a further 69.3% mobile penetration rate.

The contract comes into effect today and the construction is expected to begin immediately and is planned to be completed by the end of 2016.