Intelvision’s 2Africa cable system lands in Seychelles   |21 April 2023

Expected to go live in September 2023

By Diane Larame

The 2Africa cable system made its landing in Seychelles on the beach at North East Point yesterday morning.

The 45,000 kilometre long cable is the largest submarine cable to land in Seychelles and it is set to become one of the world’s largest subsea cables.

With this new cable, which offers over 600Gbps of international bandwidth, Intelvision will be able to increase the speeds and capacity of its existing Fibre Optic system.

The project to build 2Africa started in May, 2020, and it is a partnership between China Mobile International, Meta, MTN Global Connect, Orange, Saudi Telecom Company (stc), Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC.

It is considered the most comprehensive subsea cable to serve Africa. 

The cable is also directly connected to Milan in Italy, Mombasa in Kenya and Cape Town, South Africa.

With the arrival of the new cable, Intelvision now becomes the only telecommunications company in Seychelles to have its own submarine cable – a project, which costs US $32 million making it one of the largest investments by a single operator of its kind in Seychelles.

Intelvision said it realises that the level of broadband traffic is growing exponentially and thus the need for a great boost within the quality of the services, which they offer and the new 2Africa cable system provides the perfect opportunity to exploit the abundant benefits on offer.

Intelvision’s chief executive, Reza Jaro, said that with this new cable, the company is expected to offer competitive pricing and a more desirable experience in fixed broadband services.

“With the existing sea submarine cable, we had to agree on whatever price they gave. However with our own cable we can set the prices. And we believe this can revolutionise the way internet is being used in the country today,” he said.

He also stated that with this cable, Intelvision’s customers would also be able to watch all of the social media content in 4k instead of HD as is the case presently.

The cable is expected to go live in September 2023, as reported by Frederick Abrams, chief technical officer of Intelvision.

“There is an extensive process that has to happen, today was just the landing. There will still be a process where it needs to go through testing, activation and commissioning and segment commissioning abroad as well, before providing the service to the customers,” he said.

The project is a collaboration between Intelvision and Vodafone aimed at enhancing connectivity and providing a better experience to both existing and new customers.

The accompanying photograph show some highlights of the landing of the cable at North East Point beach yesterday.

Photos by Diane Larame