Le premier atterrissage de ce câble en fibre optique, initité notamment par Meta, vient d’avoir lieu en Italie. Il sera à terme le plus long du monde.

Une infrastructure hors norme commence à se concrétiser. Le câble sous-marin en fibre optique 2Africa a atterri la semaine dernière à Gêne, dans le Nord-Ouest de l’Italie. C’est la première station d’une longue série puisque 46 atterrissages sont prévus au total.

Plus long que la circonférence de la Terre

Tout se décline au superlatif dans ce projet. 2Africa sera le plus long câble du monde puisqu’il s’étendra sur 45 000 km (!), soit davantage que la circonférence de la Terre. Il reliera 33 pays lors de sa mise en service probable en 2024. Il connectera potentiellement trois milliards de personnes, soit 36% de la population mondiale en reliant trois continents : Afrique, Europe et Asie. En France, il passera par Marseille.

Lors de la première annonce en 2020, 2Africa ne devait mesurer “que” 37 000 km de long. En août 2021, quatre étapes supplémentaires ont été ajoutées pour étendre la connectivité aux Seychelles, aux Comores et à l’Angola, ainsi qu’au sud-est du Nigeria.
Enfin, en septembre de l’année dernière, c’est l’extension Pearls qui a été apportée pour relier le Golfe, le Pakistan et l’Inde.

Meta à la manoeuvre

Au sein du consortium qui a initié le projet, on notera la présence de Meta, mais aussi de China Mobile, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, STC, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone ou encore WIOCC. Et c’est la branche française Alcatel Submarine Networks de Nokia qui fabrique et pose l’infrastructure dans les fonds marins.  

2Africa embarquera plusieurs innovations. Il va intégrer notamment un conducteur innovant en aluminium, ainsi que la  technologie SDM1 (Spatial Division Multiplexing) qui permet de déployer jusqu’à seize paires de fibres contre huit auparavant. Le tout pour davantage de capacité.
Il embarquera aussi la technologie de commutation optique pour gérer de façon plus flexible la bande passante. Une première en Afrique. Enfin, il sera enfoui plus profondément, de manière à éviter que des bateaux ne le sectionnent accidentellement.

Son objectif principal est de répondre aux besoins en connectivité de l’Afrique et du Moyen-Orient. Le câble aura une capacité nominale de 180 Tbit/s par seconde et devrait fournir, d’après Meta, près de trois fois la capacité totale de tous les câbles sous-marins desservant actuellement l’Afrique.

Dans tous les pays où 2Africa atterrira, les prestataires de services auront la possibilité d’accéder à des centres de données neutres, c’est-à-dire qui ne seront pas la propriété unique d’un opérateur.  

L’article en anglais :

Connectivity is at the heart of our mission to give people the power to build community. We are committed to bringing more people online to a faster internet — and with 3.5 billion people globally unconnected, there is still a lot to do. Africa is currently the least connected continent, with just over a quarter of its 1.3 billion people connected to the internet. As part of our commitment, we’re proud to announce that Facebook has partnered with leading African and global operators to build 2Africa, the most comprehensive subsea cable to serve the African continent and Middle East region. A transformational cable, 2Africa is one of the largest subsea cable projects in the world and will interconnect 23 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

At 37,000 kilometers long, 2Africa will be nearly equal to the circumference of the Earth. The project is impressive for more than length alone: It will provide nearly three times the total network capacity of all the subsea cables serving Africa today. When completed, this new route will deliver much-needed internet capacity, redundancy, and reliability across Africa; supplement a rapidly increasing demand for capacity in the Middle East; and support further growth of 4G, 5G, and broadband access for hundreds of millions of people.

Expanding connectivity for the future

Like all of our investments, 2Africa is being completed as part of our efforts toward an open and inclusive internet ecosystem, which is a vital part of the continent’s digital economic growth. In the countries where the 2Africa cable lands, service providers will obtain capacity in carrier-neutral data centers and open-access cable landing stations on a fair and equitable basis. The first subsea cable system to seamlessly connect East and West Africa across a single open system, 2Africa will enable new avenues of communication from coast to coast. In addition, we are developing a new crossing that links the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, the first in this region in over a decade.

This expanded capacity will facilitate a healthy internet ecosystem by enabling greatly improved accessibility for people and businesses alike. We have seen firsthand the positive impact that increased connectivity has on communities, from education to health care. We know that economies flourish when there is widely accessible internet for businesses. This project builds on our partnership with the Internet Society to develop internet exchanges and provide technical training, support, and equipment in Africa. We see 2Africa as an important pillar supporting tremendous internet expansion as part of Africa’s growing digital economy.

The investment in 2Africa builds on other investments we have made in the region, including infrastructure investments in South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of connectivity as billions of people around the world rely on the internet to work, attend school, and stay connected to those they care about. 2Africa will be not only an important element for advancing connectivity infrastructure across the African continent, but also a major investment that comes at a crucial time for economic recovery.

Making use of new technologies 

Technological advancements have increased the efficiency of this project. This is the first system of its size to make use of an innovative aluminum conductor for submarine cable systems. In addition, we have doubled the maximum eight fiber pairs supported by older technology for significantly more resource-efficient fiber optic cable by implementing Spatial Division Multiplexing (SDM1) technology. SDM1 is the latest innovative technology currently available for submarine cables. With up to 16 fiber pairs, 2Africa will allow for far greater capacity. It will also be the first time Wavelength Selective Switching (WSS)-ROADM is utilized in Africa, allowing for more flexible capacity management. 

One of the most important features of the 2Africa cable is that it was designed with resiliency in mind to attain optimal performance. The cable design itself provides an increase of 50 percent in burial depth — up to three meters — to ensure the highest availability with greater protection against damage. In addition, we designed the cable routing using advanced techniques to avoid areas of known subsea disturbance to ensure the highest levels of availability. 

2Africa is a continuation of our ongoing efforts to expand global network infrastructure. We have collaborated with partners all over the world to build several subsea fiber-optic cables that are leading the industry in terms of reach, capacity, and flexibility. 2Africa is the latest example of our innovative partnership model, in which everyone benefits from developing scale infrastructure and shared technology expertise.