The growth of Africa’s digital space has been nothing short of rapid, having rapidly improved hundreds of millions of lives and transformed dozens of societies.
Through better use of data, as opposed to fossil-based technologies, the continent’s opportunity to become more sustainable and economically prosperous lies primarily in digitization.
Despite meteoric adoption, the digital divide remains one that needs to be addressed. Less than a third of the population has broadband access. 21 of the world’s 25 least connected countries are here and 300 million Africans live more than 50 kilometers away from a fiber optic or cable Internet connection.
With the potential of the Internet ecosystem becoming more glaring, several high-profile companies are rising to the occasion with the aim of filling the existing gaps.
As the number of local Internet users increases, the need for more broadband initiatives has come to the fore, attracting the attention of major global infrastructure builders.
These long-awaited projects, when completed, would put an end to slow internet speeds, inconsistent coverage and expensive data prices.
Taara
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, was developed Taara in the stables of the X moonshot factory as an offshoot of a more expensive, now-defunct initiative known as Loon, which used stratospheric helium balloons to spread wireless internet.
Although Loon was phased out in January 2021, some of the free-space optical communications (FSOC) technologies used were retained to deliver high-speed broadband services to areas that desperately need them.
The first time the Taara links were tested, they served 700 terabytes of data, enough to watch a FIFA World Cup match in HD 270,000 times over 20 days with up to 99.9% consistency. These links were radius beyond the Congo River to bridge a persistent connectivity gap between Brazzaville in the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Alphabet is joining forces with telcos in parts of Africa and India to expand coverage to some of the world’s most remote areas, and is reportedly making progress. So far, Taara has been deployed in 13 countries, on the back of deals with operators such as Liquid Telecom, ISP Bluetown, Digicel and Bharti Airtel.
Aerostatics
Backed by venture capital giant SoftBank, tethered balloon specialist Altaeros has become one of the world’s best-known makers of high-altitude internet connectivity.
To bring people in remote areas online, the company sends solar electrodes 244 to 259 meters (or 800 to 850 feet) into the atmosphere.
In January 2022, Altaeros partnered with World Mobile, a blockchain-based telecommunications company, to provide wireless connectivity to balloons called Aerostats, with plans to fly over the continent. The agreement first port of call was Zanzibaran independent island off the coast of east-central Africa.
The balloons, also called SuperTowers, can cover up to 8,000 square kilometers with 3G and 4G, the same area as 15 terrestrial cell towers.
Trials are underway in Zanzibar and Pemba, where helium bridges provide browser and email access to communities on both islands. When successful, the project will expand across the continent.
Airband
During a Washington summit in December 2022 in Washington, the tech giant Microsoft revealed its plans to begin the deployment of a satellite Internet program in parts of Egypt, Senegal and Angola.
This effort is part of the multinational Airband initiativewhich seeks to provide Internet access to hundreds of millions worldwide by 2025.
In May 2023, Microsoft announced new and expanded partnerships to bring Airband to 40 million people in Africa and Latin America, including Ivory Coast, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda Brazil, Chile , Colombia and Guatemala. It tied up with Mawingu, Liquid Intelligent, Viasat and Tizeti to make it possible in these places.
Launched in 2017, Airband’s first focus was on harnessing unused broadcast frequencies between television channels to provide improved Internet connectivity in the United States.
Since then, it has strengthened its global presence and developed a multi-technology, multi-frequency approach to provide connectivity based on what suits each region, be it fixed wireless, fiber, Citizen Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) or satellites.
2 Africa
As part of Meta’s commitment to bring more people online to a faster internet, it has partnered with some of the world’s leading telecom operators to create 2 Africathe most complete submarine cable system in the world.
The (transformational) project is one of the largest of its kind and will connect 23 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
The consortium, consisting of Telecom Egypt, China Mobile International, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, STC, Vodafone and the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) has made progress in developing the submarine line.
It debuted in May 2020 and made its first landing in Genoa, Italy in April 2022. Since then, it has landed in dozens of African and extra continental locations including Djibouti, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, France and Spain.
At 37,000 km long, 2Africa stretches almost as far as the circumference of the earth. Upon completion, it will provide three times the combined network capacity of undersea cables currently serving Africa, provide high-speed Internet capacity of up to 180 terabytes per second, and support the deployment of 4G/5G broadband access.
Expectations are that it will be released later this year.
Equiano
Another undersea system, Equiano is the third private international cable owned by Google. It connects from Sesimbra in Portugal to Cape Town in South Africa, but has stopovers in key locations such as Lagos, Nigeria. Lome, Togo? Swakopmund, Namibia; and Rupert’s Bay in the Saint Helena Islands.
The 15,000km project named after Olaudah Equiano, the Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist who was enslaved as a boy, was first announced in June 2019 and was scheduled to launch in 2021.
However, the coronavirus pandemic delayed the launch until September 2022, when it reached its final destination in South Africa. It is reportedly ready for use from March 2023.
The state-of-the-art infrastructure is based on space division multiplexing (SDM) technology, with 12 five pairs and a design capacity of 144 terabytes per second. This means Equiano has 20 times the capacity of the last submarine cable built to serve Africa.
In addition, it is the first submarine cable to incorporate optical switching at the fiber pair level.