By Adeyemi Adepetun and Bankole Orimisan

DESPITE the berth of about 16 submarine cable systems in Nigeria and other African countries, the continent is still not competitive, especially in terms of content delivery; qualitative Internet service and maximum utilization of the bandwidth facilities. This is compared to its counterparts in Europe, America and Asia.

Indeed, Africa’s submarine cable market is estimated to worth over $20 billion, with operators including the South Atlantic 3; MainOne; Glo1; West African Cable System (WACS); Lower Indian Ocean Network (Lion); African Coast to Europe (ACE); Seacom, EASSy; TEAMS; South Africa Far East (SAFE); West Africa Festoon System (WAFS) among others, dominating the market.

As at today, report has it that the total capacity in sub-Saharan African submarine cable systems increased by 71 per cent over the last five years, with the availability of over 25Tb/s bandwidth capacity. Read more