A New Digital Backbone for Africa

A consortium led by Orange is developing a 20,000-kilometer subsea cable called Via Africa that will connect Nigeria with nearly 20 other countries across Africa and Europe. This initiative aims to address growing concerns about digital infrastructure resilience on the continent.

The new cable system positions itself among the longest serving Africa, though it falls short of Meta’s 45,000-kilometer 2Africa cable which currently holds that title. Despite hosting eight submarine cables—the most in West Africa—Nigeria frequently experiences connectivity disruptions due to fiber cuts and network congestion as data usage continues its upward trajectory.

“Every two days somewhere in the world you have a cable cut or failure,” explained Michaël Trabbia, CEO of Orange Wholesale. “You need different routes to ensure continued connectivity when failures occur.”

The project remains open to additional partners with final landing locations and participating countries expected to evolve as more operators join.

Addressing Single Points of Failure

Africa currently relies on a limited number of markets for international bandwidth, with Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, and Kenya handling over half of all traffic. This concentration creates vulnerabilities exposed by recent outages along the West African coast that disrupted services across multiple countries.

Via Africa seeks to mitigate these risks through diverse routing and modern technology designed to minimize downtime. Trabbia noted that older cables become less efficient over time as newer systems offer significantly greater capacity with improved designs—a typical cable lifetime being around 20-25 years before it becomes a minor contributor to overall traffic.

The new cable will incorporate physical protection layers, including burial up to 2,000 meters deep where possible, to reduce damage from marine activities that frequently impact subsea systems.

Strategic Implications for Nigeria’s Digital Economy

Beyond enhanced connectivity, Via Africa has the potential to attract hyperscale data centers and cloud providers seeking robust digital infrastructure investments in Africa. The direct Atlantic route between West Africa and Europe also offers a strategic advantage over Mediterranean pathways used by existing cables.

Orange estimates construction will take 3-4 years once all consortium arrangements are finalized. This project aligns with Orange’s broader commitment to expanding digital access across the continent, including training initiatives for young people in critical technology fields and plans to increase its network of digital centers.