WIOCC installs Google’s Equiano cable in South Africa

The recent landing of the Equiano cable has enabled WIOCC to extend its presence and services in South Africa.

Google’s state-of-the-art, 144 tbps, 12 fibre pair Equiano cable will improve connectivity across the region, driving faster internet speeds, reducing internet prices and improving user experience across the board. 

The cable was landed by WIOCC in Lagos, Nigeria on the 8th of August. 

“Having invested multiple billions of Rand to enhance our 16Tbps-ready, Optical Transport Network-enabled national hyperscale network infrastructure, we are extremely well positioned to provide businesses with access to fully upgradeable, quickly and easily scalable capacity throughout South Africa and into neighbouring countries, over one of the most future-proof networks in the country”, commented Chris Wood, WIOCC Group CEO.

“Our investment in Equiano continues our long-standing policy of making strategic investments in subsea cables. We own almost a third of the >10Tbps EASSy system, which extends from South Africa along Africa’s eastern coastline to Djibouti and Port Sudan; we deliver more capacity than any other carrier on the WACS system, which links South Africa to western Europe and lands in many countries along the west coast of Africa; and we are a member of the 2Africa cable, which will bring another high-capacity connectivity option to Africa during 2023/24.”

WIOCC’s expanding presence in the South African data centre market 

Since it is a fibre pair owner, WIOCC has complete control over future upgrades to its Equiano capacity. 

Alongside this newly-landed cable, WIOCC also owns and manages its own Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (SLTE), and is opening a new Open Access Data Centres (OADC) data centre. 

OADC is a WIOCC Group company, and this new facility will be based in Rondebosch, Cape Town. The facility is one of three new core data centres in the region, which OADC plans to make live by the end of Q3 2022.