Google’s Equiano submarine cable lands in Togo

• Google’s Equiano submarine cable has made its landing in Togo, the first point in Africa.
• Google’s Equiano submarine cable was initially billed to land in first in Nigeria.
• Equiano submarine cable is part of Google’s $1 billion package to support the continent’s digital transformation.

 

Google’s Equiano submarine cable has made its first landing – in Lomé, the capital of Togo.
This comes as something of a surprise, as even as late as November 2021 it was expected that it
would land in Nigeria first.

Equiano was announced in mid-2019 and is the third private international cable owned by Google. It is part of Google’s US$1 billion package to build the digital industry on the continent and “support the continent’s digital transformation”.

Equiano is a new generation infrastructure submarine cable that will “significantly decrease internet costs and triple internet speeds” in South Africa, but improve internet speed in Nigeria five-fold by 2025. It is estimated that the drop in internet prices will be 16%-21% in Nigeria, Namibia and South Africa by 2025. As more countries link to the cable and as additional research and analysis is done,figures will also become available for other countries.

Importantly, these improvements are also expected to increase internet penetration by 7% – 9% in
the three countries and Equiano is part of the gearing up to grow connectivity on the continent.
Internet connectivity as a percentage of total population in the five main African regions is currently as follows: Northern Africa – 63%; Western Africa – 42%; Southern Africa – 66%; Central Africa -24%; Eastern Africa – 26%. This means that about 44% of Africa’s 1.4 billion people are yet to connect to the internet.

Equiano will help improve government’s service delivery and create new education learning
channels. “With this new submarine cable, we will be able to meet the needs of the government’s
roadmap for bolstering the international connection to the global network,” explained Cina Lawson, Minister of Digital Economy and Technological Innovation in Togo.

In addition, Togo will be able to sell “international capacity to ISPs, both in Togo and neighbouring countries”, Minister Lawson said.

Why Nigeria Lost Out
With the cable’s landing in Togo, it is not yet clear what informed the change in plans since Nigeria was expected to be its first landing point. This however may not be unconnected with the recent EndSARS protest and the government’s move to ban Twitter and subsequently regulate all internet companies.