Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

- 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 cable primarily serves South Africa, Portugal, and Nigeria. The 180 Tbps 2Africa network 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 wi...

Digital Giants regularly boast about the impact of their network investments on humanity's welfare. Undoubtedly, good Internet infrastructure leads to new services and raises productivity. It is essential to a modern society. But quantifying how much subsea cables boost real GDP is  a hopeless statistical task  because economic models often struggle to explain growth and economic development. For example, more Internet services is both a cause and also an effect of economic growth. As incomes rise, demand for Internet services increase in terms of news consumption, entertainment, and the general quest for information. Give a poor African nation better cellular coverage and higher data throughput and TikTok consumption rises. But it would be a stretch to claim TikTok generates net economic growth. Furthermore, most Internet services cannibalize at least to some extent their non-Internet counterparts such as newspapers, book sales, phone calls, library visits, etc. Disentangling...