In collaboration with Google, Société d’Infrastructures Numériques (SIN) and CSquared, Togo became last week the first landing point of the Equiano subsea cable in Africa. President Faure Gnassingbé inaugurated it on Friday at the autonomous port of Lomé.
The cable is part of Google’s $1bn plan to build African digital capacity, and will also land in Nigeria, Namibia and South Africa later this year. The landing in Nigeria is scheduled in April 2022, according to sources within Google that Hawilti spoke to.
Equinao was first introduced by Google in 2019 and will ultimately run from Europe to Africa via Portugal. While Nigeria was initially set to be its first landing point, Togo made a successful case to Google since then that Equinao should have a landing point in the country. The country of 8m was already the first in West Africa to launch a 5G network in 2020.
This new cable is fully funded by Google, making it its third private international cable after Dunant (USA-France) and Curie (USA-Chile), and its 14th subsea cable investment globally. It is named after Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist who was enslaved as a boy.
Equiano is based on space-division multiplexing (SDM) technology and will offer 20 times more bandwidth than any other cable currently serving West Africa, and result in affordable internet access for millions in the region. Research commissioned by Google expects the cable to help a country like Togo double internet speeds within three years and reduce internet prices by 14%.
“We strive to be a digital hub for innovation and investment as we demonstrate our commitment to enhancing public and social services for all of our citizens. This historic moment will boost economic growth in Togo too, creating 37,000 new jobs between 2022 and 2025 and increasing economic output by an additional $351 million,” said Cina Lawson, Minister of Digital Economy and Digital Transformation of Togo.