Telecom Egypt, which provides fixed and mobile voice and data services to Egyptian customers, and the government of St Helena have signed an agreement to connect the island to Telecom Egypt’s subsea system over the Equiano submarine cable system.
A British Overseas Territory, St Helena island is a remote volcanic outpost in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Telecom Egypt says it will be the first supplier to provide St Helena, which has a population of around 6,000, with a fibre optic connection to the rest of the world. Plans are for the cable, along with the associated high speed internet, to be delivered to the island by early 2022.
The branch that connects Telecom Egypt’s system to St Helena will be 1,140km long. The cable will run from the west coast of Africa and provide St Helena with access to both Lisbon, Portugal, and Melkbosstrand, South Africa, with scalable connectivity ranging from a few hundred gigabits up to multiple terabits, as demand varies.
Telecom Egypt, in conjunction with the St Helena government, will provide a dynamic circuit network functionality, which will ensure that the government’s communication partners have access to fixed bandwidth. Telecom Egypt will also support the St Helena government in the design, installation and configuration of the submarine and network equipment.
Equiano is Google’s new private submarine cable between Africa and Europe. The St Helena government announced that it had issued a letter of intent to connect St Helena to the Equiano subsea cable project in July 2019.
