Senegal is currently served by four submarine fiber optic cables, namely SAT-3, ACE, ATLANTIS-2 and SHARE. The country has 19.2 million Internet subscribers for a penetration rate of 108.31%, according to the latest official statistics.
Senegal will soon be connected to the 2Africa submarine fiber optic cable from the eponymous consortium led by the American technology company Meta. Installation work on the Senegalese branch of this infrastructure was launched on Tuesday October 31, with the arrival in Dakar of a cable ship from Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), a Nokia subsidiary responsible for the construction of the cable. The latter will work in partnership with the telecoms company Sonatel which is responsible for the construction of the 2Africa landing station in Senegal.
“ We will retain the nominal capacity to be 180 Tbit/s on key elements of the system, to improve connectivity in Africa and meet the growing demand for capacity in the Middle East. It is also intended to facilitate the deployment of 4G, 5G and broadband access for hundreds of millions of people ,” Sonatel said in a press release.
2Africa will become the fifth international fiber optic submarine cable to which Senegal connects. The country is already served by the SAT-3 (South Atlantic 3), ACE (Africa Coast to Europe), ATLANTIS-2 and SHARE (Senegal Horn of Africa Regional Express) cables.
The commissioning of this infrastructure is expected not only to improve the quality and coverage of broadband Internet services, but also to reduce the costs of these services. This will reach millions more people and meet ever-growing demand. This should also accelerate the Senegalese government’s digital transformation ambitions.
According to statistics from the Senegal Telecommunications and Postal Regulatory Authority (ARTP), the country had 19.2 million subscriptions to Internet services at the end of the second quarter of 2023 (April-June). This represents a fairly high penetration rate (108.31%). However, the actual numbers are expected to be lower as some people have multiple SIM cards.