Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 13 | Page 48

COUNTRY FOCUS: ANGOLA “ TRADITIONALLY SEEN AS AN OIL-PRODUCING NATION, ANGOLA IS EMERGING AS A TELECOMMUNICATIONS LEADER. From a connectivity perspective, since 2012 the West Africa Cable System (WACS) has been a vital ‘digital bridge’ for SSA, providing carrier-level services to operators in the region across a dozen countries. Managed by a consortium of companies, it extends more than 14,000 km between Yzerfontein in South Africa and London in the United Kingdom and includes 11 landing points in Africa and three in Europe. Augmenting Africa’s Global Connectivity As much as WACS is an essential artery for the digital connectivity and economic development of countries connecting to the cable, Africa is about to see the addition of new infrastructure, centred in Angola, to augment its global connectivity. Traditionally, data has travelled between Africa and the Americas (the largest centre for the production and aggregation of digital content and services), via WACS through Europe. With the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS), expected to be completed in mid-2018, the first direct link between Africa and South America will be created. António Nunes, CEO – Angola Cables received, on subsea fibre optic cable systems between Angola and Brazil is about 350 milliseconds, due to the trafficking of the Internet via Europe and the USA. With SACS, this will be reduced fivefold to approximately 63 milliseconds. In effect, this will create a ‘continental shift’ in terms of Internet access A subsea cable extending more than 6,500km between Brazil and Angola, SACS will be 100% owned and managed by Angola Cables, already an active member of the WACS consortium. Combined with Monet – another new investment from Angola Cables in South America, the 10,556 km cable system between Brazil and USA links the cities of São Paulo, Fortaleza and Miami and has been operational since January 2018 – SACS represents a paradigm shift for Africa and the Americas in terms of connectivity and collaboration. Currently, the latency, or the time lag between a data packet being sent and 48 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com