Coming soon, another West Africa subsea cable
While existing cables like WACS and SAT‑3 keep the lights on, they’re aging, costly, and often the sole gateway for whole nations in West Africa. A purpose‑built, multi‑route cable—tightly coupled with terrestrial fibre and local IXPs—could slash wholesale prices, boost resilience, and unlock Africa‑to‑Africa traffic flows. Now is the moment to act and coordinated planning can shave months off a typical 30‑48 month rollout.
West Africa’s digital landscape has leapt forward in recent years, yet large parts of the region still wrestle with fragile, overpriced, and uneven international connectivity. A dedicated submarine cable aimed at the continent’s most underserved markets would address three urgent needs—resilience, affordability, and inclusive growth—while unlocking new economic opportunities for hundreds of millions of people. To be truly effective, the cable must also be tightly integrated with terrestrial fibre networks and local Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) so that traffic can be exchanged locally, cached efficiently, and routed between neighbouring countries without unnecessary detours via Europe.
Resilience. Many West African nations already host one or more submarine cable landings, but many of those systems are aging. Legacy cables such as WACS, SAT 3, and ACE were installed over a decade ago and are approaching the end of their design life. The newest 2Africa cable will only land in 9 mainland countries out over 20 nations. When a country’s only operational landing is an old system, a fault can isolate the entire nation from the global internet. An omnibus cable would create modern, redundant pathways, ensuring continuity of the digital economy services critical for long-term economic growth.
Affordability. International wholesale bandwidth costs in the region remain among the highest in the world because the market is dominated by a limited number of carriers. Introducing another high capacity, open-access infrastructure commoditises the services and forces incumbents to compete on price, driving down wholesale rates. Moreover, several West African states—particularly those with extensive offshore continental shelves face dramatically higher cable branch construction costs. The new system should share infrastructure wherever possible: a common landing station can serve multiple nearby countries, and the last mile connection can be delivered over existing and to-be-built terrestrial fibre backbones rather than building an expensive, vulnerable branch for each nation. This hybrid approach reduces capital expenditure for local governments, lowers the per megabit cost of capacity, and translates into cheaper broadband plans for end users.
Inclusive Growth. A growing share of international data traffic now moves directly between African countries, bypassing traditional European transit points. This reduces latency, cuts transit fees, and keeps revenue within the continent. To capitalize on that trend, a new cable must be designed with Africa-Africa traffic in mind, linking African data centre hotspots together. On the other hand, landlocked countries have no coastline, so they cannot host a physical cable landing. Here, virtual cable landing stations— Internet Exchange Point locations linked with landing sites—can extend the submarine system’s reach inland. When paired with a multi-route (we suggest 4 or 5 as a minimum), high-capacity terrestrial fibre backbone, virtual landings give landlocked states cost-efficient, low latency access to international connectivity. Coastal countries can support this development by offering access to dark fibre infrastructure.
Supply chain obstacles. Even with a clear business case, building a submarine cable is a multi year undertaking. Three supply chain constraints are stretching timelines. First, global demand for subsea fibre has created backlogs of 12–18 months at the few specialised factories that can produce it. Securing the required length for a West African route therefore adds a year or more to the schedule. Second, only a limited fleet of purpose built ships can lay deep water telecommunications cable. They are booked for projects well in advance. Third, a number of countries still require extensive documentation, studies and approvals to obtain the necessary permits to operate and lay infrastructure in their territorial waters and coastlines. Consequently, the typical “lead time” from project approval to operational service ranges from 30 to 48 months. Early engagement with manufacturers, pre booking of installation ships, local authorities and coordinated planning with fibre backbone owners can shave months off the schedule, but the fundamental bottlenecks remain.
The timing is unmistakable: West Africa’s digital future hinges on a resilient, affordable, and well integrated submarine backbone that replaces aging assets like WACS, SAT 3, and ACE, complements 2Africa and Equiano, accommodates the high cost of offshore landings through shared infrastructure, supports the emerging pattern of direct intra African traffic and the needs of land locked nations via virtual landing stations. Although manufacturing shortages, a limited fleet of installation ships and lengthy permitting processes stretch the lead time to three plus years, those logistical hurdles are surmountable with early planning and coordinated investment. By committing now to a purpose built cable that reaches both coastal hubs and inland capitals and by wiring each landing (physical or virtual) into robust terrestrial fibre and vibrant IXPs, governments, operators, and investors can ensure that every West African citizen shares in the high speed, low latency internet that powers today’s global economy.
ABOUT DIGITAL AFRICA DEVELOPMENT AGENCY
The Digital Africa Development Agency helps public and private organisations to maximise the impact of digital services on economic development and their stakeholders, by providing expert advice, market insights and operational support. More information at www.digitalafrica.ai