WIOCC, a provider of digital connectivity and infrastructure across Africa, is working with Ciena to activate a fiber pair on the new Equiano submarine cable system.

The Equiano submarine cable system runs a total of 15,000km from Portugal along the African west coast. Equiano will be one of the largest cables serving Africa, with 12 fiber pairs delivering a total of 144Tbps of capacity, to meet demand for connectivity in South Africa, Nigeria and neighboring countries.

WIOCC is a key investor in Equiano, owning a full fiber pair on the system in addition to submarine line terminal equipment (SLTE) from Ciena. Spectrum sharing is supported across the network, allowing WIOCC to broaden its service portfolio.

Chris Wood, WIOCC Group CEO, said: “Ciena has experience delivering submarine network solutions across the globe. This collaboration offers us the best lead times, a great commercial proposition and high-quality, accessible technical support – all vital as we expand our ability to support the cloud and wholesale community in Africa.”

The cable, now in deployment and scheduled to go live in stages throughout 2023 and 2024, will land directly in the new carrier-neutral OADC facility in Durban.

Ian Clarke, Vice President of Global Submarine Solutions, Ciena, said: “Our collaboration is ensuring the systems, and regions, keep pace with bandwidth demands while reducing transport costs. We’re making connectivity smarter and faster, utilizing software automation and AI to bring it ever closer to end users.”

WIOCC is deploying Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme Solution, which leverages the 6500 Reconfigurable Line System (RLS), WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optics and Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) domain controller. Ciena Services is providing turnkey planning, design and deployment services to ensure project success.