African Subsea Cable Trends: Emerging Capacity Crunch & The Red Sea

- 2Africa more expensive than Equiano. The 100G 2Africa pricing is $25K and above excluding tails. In contrast, Equiano 100G pricing Lagos/Lisbon is below $20K now. Similarly, Equiano 10G pricing gravitates around $5K versus $10K on the same route for 2Africa.  

The reason for this disparity is that the 144 Tbps Equiano primarily serves South Africa, Portugal, and Nigeria. The 180 Tbps 2Africa serves over 30 countries and Facebook kept 4 of the 16 pairs for its internal traffic. 

Another sign of the impending capacity crunch is the unwillingness of 2Africa consortium members to sell IRUs. An IRU is a long term capacity sale ranging from 10 years to life of system. Carriers will not sell IRUs if they expect future capacity shortages or think the probability is high. Many of these carriers have transit backbones that they must keep running smoothly. 

What you should do? Stock up on Equiano and 2Africa waves and spectrum because prices will begin rising within 2 years. And there is no relief on the horizon with no announced new cables. Moreover, cable projects generally take three from the initial public disclosure of a Memorandum of Understanding. 

- The Red Sea is a disaster for Africa and the trans-continental cables connecting Europe to India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The following cables cannot be completed as the situations stands today:

1. 2Africa.

2. Africa-1.

3. Blue Raman.

4. AAE2.

5. SMW6.

Rumor has it that SMW6 is building a bypass route across Saudi Arabia. But the rest of the players are engaging in typical corporate stonewalling regarding the subject. Contrary to what they think, frank and open disclosure works better than corporate secrecy when dealing with matters affecting the public interest (sorry, consortium members, you are not the world).