Six things to know about network connectivity in Africa | IDG Connect

Photo: Kathryn Cave

Kathryn Cave, Editor at IDG Connect summarizes, "A special summit collocated with Datacloud Europe 2017 addressed datacentres in Africa."

Photo: IDG Connect

Since the first undersea cables began to connect Africa in the early 2000s, a network of fibre has slowly grown to surround the continent. However, what exists at the edge does not necessarily make its way to the interior and this has resulted in extremely varied internet rates and costs.

The issue of network connectivity was discussed as part of Invest in Datacentre Africa, a bespoke summit collocated within Datacloud Europe 2017, early in June. The summary below attempts to highlight the important points.

Geo-political issues always raise their ugly head. It can be hard to talk about Africa without getting lost in a minefield of mixed meanings. Sub-Saharan countries get lumped together because these are all served by the same cables. North African countries are often not included in discussions about Africa at all because they’re served by a different set of cables. And there can be tendency to ignore Francophone countries altogether and focus exclusively on English speaking ones (although, admittedly, not so much in the networking space).
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Source: IDG Connect