Facebook is teaming up with telecoms companies to build a 37,000km (23,000-mile) undersea cable to supply faster internet to 16 countries in Africa.
Its length - almost equal to the circumference of the Earth - will make it one of the longest, it said. It is part of a long-running bid by Facebook to take its social media platform to Africa's young population. Ready for use by 2024, it will deliver three times the capacity of all current undersea cables serving Africa. "When completed, this new route will deliver much-needed internet capacity, redundancy, and reliability across Africa, supplement a rapidly increasing demand for capacity in the Middle East, and support further growth of 4G, 5G, and broadband access for hundreds of millions of people," said Facebook in a blog.
Africa lags behind the rest of the world when it comes to internet access, with four in 10 people across the continent having access to the web, compared with a global average of six in 10. But the continent represents huge opportunities for technology firms and businesses with its population of 1.3 billion.
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