#WorkFromHome Surges Demand For Angola Cable Networks

Angola Cables has recently recorded a 170% growth in traffic on its IP Network in the first quarter of 2020.

A portion of this growth has attributed to the surge in demand following the lockdown regulations imposed by many governments in curbing the spread of Covid-19, whereas the additional traffic is believed to have resulted from the opening and upgrading of points of presence in the main global traffic exchange locations, as has been done in the recent months.

The company, through its CEO, António Nunes said; “The new activations, expansion of services and more requests for burstable solutions and IP Flex options by customers has instigated the traffic growth.”

Earlier this year, two new Points of Presence (PoP) were introduced in Brazil to boost connectivity between networks and digital eco-systems within the Latin American geography. With access to the NAP of the Americas (also known as MI1) – the world’s largest interconnected network point gives customers greater access to cloud-based and other connected services across Latin America and the rest of the world.

“The addition of more access points to our network gives us wider market coverage and better content aggregation that can be delivered to our partners and customers at lower latencies,’’ Nunes added.

The Luanda-based telecommunications operator, Angola Cables, recently extended its network to the East African market, after opening up the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS). Cables that run on the East Coast include SEACOM, East African Marine Cable System (TEAMS), Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System EASSY, and Lion 2.

The company brags to feature the lowest latency in connection compared to other cables around the continent, for example, the connection from Miami to Luanda was 237ms, but with the SACS it is 125ms, while Miami to Cape Town is now 163ms (from 338ms).

Although the outages experienced on the WACS and SAT-3 undersea cables that connect Africa to Europe negatively impacted internet connectivity, Angola Cables was ready to accommodate ISP’s and other entities by re-routing traffic and providing capacity on its SACS cable connection noted Nunes. He added that such incidents served to underline the importance of service providers having adequate redundancy and continuity measures in place to minimize the impact of such outages and the reduction in service capabilities to the end customer.

The high volume of traffic generated on the network has predominantly been centered around the Atlantic region on the SACS, Monet sub-cable connections that link Africa to Brazil and the USA.

“As the global economy comes to grips with managing the Covid-19 pandemic, we can expect to see a significant shift in work processes and the manner in which countries, communities, and enterprises will connect in the weeks and months ahead. International wholesale carriers will need to step up and make adequate provision to protect and manage their networks as demand for capacity and data reaches record levels of usage and consumption,” noted Nunes.

From the company’s perspective, it has long anticipated the growth in demand for capacity and data in the growing digital economy, and, has geared its cable network to meet the challenges associated with a digitally connected future.