African Internet Connectivity Gets A Mobile World Congress Boost
Thursday, February 28, 2019
By Toby Shapshank
The continent’s first live 5G network in South Africa, the world’s first 400Gbps backbone network in Kenya and a 750 kilometer (km) fiberoptic network in Nigeria’s Edo and Ogun States were announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.
Despite fighting a raft of privacy battles around the world, Facebook is helping expand internet access in Africa through its Facebook Connectivity division. It announced the Nigerian fiber initiative with MainOne, the Nigerian company that operates a $240 million, 7,000 kilometer-long undersea cable from Nigeria to Portugal; as well as terrestrial fiber networks in the country.
This new 750km open-access fiber deployment in Edo and Ogun States will bring connectivity to 1-million people, Facebook said at launch during the annual conference for the mobile industry, which this year is expected to attract 21,000 visitors.
Photo courtesy of Erik (HASH) Hersman.
Source: Forbes (link opens in a new window)
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