Cable landing a new chapter in Africa-America telecoms
From PEDRO AGOSTO in Luanda, Angola
LUANDA – THE South Atlantic Cable System (SACS), one of the most advanced submarine telecommunications systems, has made landfall in Brazil.
This heralds the final phase of completion.
Expected to be fully operational by the third quarter of 2018, it is set to see a significant improvement in communications and content sharing between Angola, African countries and the Americas.
Angola Cables, a telecommunications multinational, confirmed the landing of the cable, confirmed the landfall at Fortaleza on the Brazilian coast.
Chief Executive Officer, António Nunes says the arrival and installation of SACS is an important strategic milestone for the company, Angola and Africa as it will be the first direct link between the Americas and the African continent, offering a faster routing with higher capacity.
“With SACS, the delay in transporting digital content, known as latency, will be reduced fivefold, from the current 350 thousandths of a second to just over 60 thousandths of a second,” Nunes says.
SACS will have initial capacity of 40 Terabytes per second (Tbps).
Investments in underwater cable systems such as the West African Cable System (WACS) and Monet – connecting North and South America – combined with other investments in terrestrial infrastructure such as data centres, is opening up global communications networks.
“It is also reorienting worldwide internet traffic and is effectively positioning Angola as a telecommunications hub in sub-Saharan Africa,” Nunes concludes.
– CAJ News