Openserve, the wholesale division of Telkom, has announced that it will serve as the landing station partner for Google’s massive Equiano submarine cable system in South Africa.

The company said on Wednesday that the 150Tbit/s (design capacity) Equiano system will come ashore at its landing station in the small town of Melkbosstrand, north of Cape Town, which already serves as the landing site for other submarine cables, including Sat-3, which follows not dissimilar route to Europe as Equiano.

Openserve will offer terrestrial services connecting the Equiano cable, which is already under construction between South Africa and Portugal, to South African carrier-neutral data centres.

Equiano will run from Western Europe, along the west coast of Africa to South Africa. The private undersea cable will be the first submarine cable to incorporate optical switching at the fibre-pair level as opposed to the traditional approach of wavelength-level switching.

In a statement, Openserve CEO Althon Beukes said: “Through the partnership with Google, Openserve will have access to a new submarine system offering connectivity to Europe, providing additional diversity for international communications, which should lead to improved customer service levels for international access, services and products.” — © 2021 NewsCentral Media