Telecom operator Angola Cables has announced an investment of US$100 million together with Brazil’s Algar Telecom, Antel from Uruguay and Google that will increase mobile coverage to internet by 20% of Africa’s population in 2015, according to an industry update by Pyramid Research.
In its daily update late Tuesday, PR said the Angolan telecom has already invested US$200-million in 2013 to construct a submarine cable from Africa across the Atlantic Ocean to Brazil.
“The new cable route will be 10,556 km long and have six fiber pairs. According to estimations, it will increase the overall bandwidth of existing subsea cable systems by 64 terabits per second of capacity,” said Angola Cables Chief Executive Officer Antonio Nunes.
This investment is part of a joint effort to help build the fabric of the internet to sustain the current needs of internet users in the Latin American region and to prepare for increased demands in the future.
Currently, Latin America has a connected population of almost 300 million people and has become one of the fastest-growing regions in the world in terms of internet penetration.
According to the media release, Africa similarly has an estimated population of more than 1 billion people of which half is under 30 years old.
Since June 2014, the continent has had a 19% internet penetration rate of 172 million users and a further 69.3% mobile penetration rate.
