Google will land its high-capacity Equiano submarine cable system in South Africa in June, the US Internet giant announced during an online media event on Wednesday.

This landing, at Melkbosstrand north of Cape Town, will be preceded by a landing in Namibia in May.

Telkom’s wholesale division, Openserve, has been tasked with serving as the landing station partner in South Africa for the 150Tbit/s (design capacity) Equiano system.

Openserve will offer terrestrial services connecting the Equiano cable, which will connect South Africa and Portugal (with onward connections into Europe), with branches to St Helena Island in the South Atlantic as well as to Namibia and Nigeria.

At Wednesday’s media event, Google cited research it commissioned from Africa Analysis and Genesis Analytics that found that the cable system will help create 180 000 jobs in South Africa between 2022 and 2025.

The researchers found that Equiano should drive down retail Internet prices in South Africa, Namibia and Nigeria by between 16% and 21% by 2025. This will drive up Internet penetration by seven percentage points in South Africa and Nigeria and by nine percentage points in Namibia, they said.

Meanwhile, telecommunications company Paratus Group announced on Wednesday that its Namibian subsidiary has reach an agreement with Google to serve as the landing partner for Equiano in the south-west African nation.

Meeting point

The agreement includes the construction and management of a cable landing station at the coastal town of Swakopmund. The landing station was completed in June last year already. The internal fit, including power, cabling cabinets, conduits, raceways, cages and security, was completed last month, Paratus said.

The Paratus contract includes the building to house the termination of the cable from the ocean to the landing station where it is connected to the network equipment that lights up the fibre so that it can carry data.

The cable’s landing station is also a meeting point for other operators and customers to collect and distribute their capacity.