Telecom Namibia has inaugurated its cable landing station in Swakopmund, Namibia, activating its capacity on Google’s Equiano subsea cable.

The state-owned telco secured capacity on the Equiano subsea cable in a deal with Sparkle last month.

At the time, Sparkle, a subsidiary of Telecom Italia, said it would provide Telecom Namibia with extra Internet capacity and a diversified, low-latency route between Africa and Europe.

The Equiano cable connects Namibia to Europe via Portugal and to the rest of Africa, via Cape Town and Johannesburg.

The cable will help to build resilience in light of recent cable outages, impacting the nation. In March, four cables - MainOne, SAT-3, ACE, and WACS - were damaged by an undersea landslide off the coast of West Africa.

Dr. Stanley Shanapinda, CEO of Telecom Namibia, said: “We implemented a 100G link via Equiano between Swakopmund and Johannesburg. The link has alleviated congestion on terrestrial routes and reduced latency to South Africa, ensuring the highest quality of service for our customers. This enhanced the performance of the TN network and provided faster, more reliable connectivity for users.”

Telecom Namibia is a member of the SAT-3 and WACS cable consortiums, although only WACS has a landing station in the country. The landing station for the Equiano cable was co-built by Telecom Namibia and Paratus Group and switched on in June 2023.

In October 2023, Telecom Namibia also said it would build 500 telecom towers over the next five years.