Tidings of Good News - 2Africa Deployment In Middle East

I bring you good news. The 2Africa cable is landing today in Duba, Saudi Arabia, a small port city. The Marseille/Kenya and Marseille/Mumbai segments of 2Africa has been delayed due to the Red Sea hostilities. This delay combined with limited Seacom and Eassy capacity has caused 100G prices along the East African Coast to skyrocket into the mid 40s to low 60s. Peace has not eased this crunch in part because some providers are only selling IRUs and the others are riding the high prices themselves. 

The Marseille/Egypt 2Africa segment is done and activated. But the real question is whether the consortium is prepared to take the risk of extending the subsea cable down to Djibouti right across from Yemen and then from Djibouti down to Somalia and Kenya and up to Oman. The Houthis have said the Red Sea is open for business, but the 2Africa consortium is bound to take a wait and see approach.

Finishing Marseille to Kenya would enable the East African Coast to begin sending traffic to Marseille whereas today it must all go down to South Africa, the neareast major telecom hub. This is why the capacity shortage exists. All the East Coast traffic today must go to Capetown or Johannesburg overwhelming the Seacom and Eassy cables. 

Map of 2Africs Subsea Fibre Optic Cable



Map of Middle East With Duba, Saudia Arabia Highlighted

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