Facebook – backed undersea cable, dubbed the 2Africa cable, is set to the the longest in the world upon completion, with the firm saying the cable will now extend to over 45,000 kilometers.
This comes with the addition of nine landings collectively dubbed the 2Africa Pearls. The subsea cable will directly connect three continents — Africa, Europe and Asia.
The 2Africa Pearls branch includes new locations connecting terrestrially through Egypt — Bahrain, India, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The initial plan was to lay 37,000 km (22,990 miles) of cables connecting 23 counties in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. However, Facebook increased this number to 26 last month, adding Seychelles, the Comoros Islands, Angola and a landing to the south-eastern part of Nigeria into the mix. The new branches joined the extension to the Canary Islands back in June.
With the addition of the Pearls extension, the system seeks to provide connectivity to an additional 1.8 billion people and 3 billion in total.
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