Angola Cables and Nokia trial fibre link between Africa and the US
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Angola Cables and Nokia trial fibre link between Africa and the US

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Angola Cables and Nokia have announced plans to build a direct optical connection between Africa and North America.

The new route between Sangano in Angola and Boca Raton, Miami in the US has completed its final acceptance trial.

“By optically interconnecting the deployed MONET and South Atlantic Cable System (SACS), Angola Cables is able to further reduce latency between content providers in North America and the rapidly growing data consumption markets in Africa,” said Ângelo Gama, CTO, Angola Cables.

Latencies on this newly connected network show improved performance, with the routing between Luanda, Angola and Miami, Florida having been reduced to 123.4ms, and between Cape Town and Miami to 162ms. Between Johannesburg and Miami, latency has been reduced to just 180ms.

“For example, the connection between Johannesburg and New York City will be reduced by up to 18% using the direct SACS and MONET fibre optic connection,” added Gama.

The trial used Nokia's 1830 Photonic Service Switch wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) platform.  Powered by the Photonic Service Engine coherent digital signal processor, the 1830 PSS successfully transmitted optical wavelengths over 12,635km directly from Angola to Florida, reducing latency by 30% compared to existing routes.

“We are employing technology that makes more efficient use of the existing subsea cables.  Due to Nokia 1830 PSS technology, an optical connectivity without regenerators can be set up across the SACS and MONET cable systems. This connection will register the highest bitrates and lowest latency between Africa and the USA through direct routing,” said Carlo Corti, director of the optics business development, MEA, Nokia. “We are proud to help our customer to establish an optical pathway that can deliver content and information for the benefit of people in Africa and the USA.”

In related news, Vodacom selected Angola Cable’s SACS cable as a direct route to their point of presence (PoP) in Miami.

We welcome the opportunities that the investment by Angola Cables will deliver to Vodacom and its customers,” said Guy Clarke, managing director for Vodacom Business International. “Having access to this crucial infrastructure across the Atlantic will allow various business applications and services to function optimally across continents.”

According to Vodacom the SACS cable system provides a more cost-effective route to its customers with an improved latency reduction of 40%.

“The SACS cable has far-reaching capabilities for the transfer of data and has the capacity to share vast amounts of digital content between the two continents,” added António Nunes, CEO, Angola Cables. “This presents many potential opportunities for commercial enterprises seeking to expand their businesses and services into high demand markets such as the US and the developing countries of Latin America.”

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