Meta announced Monday the arrival of the 2Africa submarine cable in Spain and the mooring of the cable in Sant Adrià de Besòs, east of Barcelona, in a partnership with AFR-IX telecom, the landing partner and the owner of the Barcelona Cable Landing Station (Barcelona CLS). 

AFR-IX telecom released the first international submarine cable - 2Africa - landed in the Barcelona Cable Landing Station on Tuesday morning, October 25, 2022.

2Africa cable lands in Barcelona
2Africa cable lands in Barcelona, Source of image: AFX-IX

 

This deployment is one of many to take place in the coming months as the 2Africa cable will be extended to a total of 46 locations by project completion in 2024. The 2Africa cable has landed in Italy, Djibouti, Somaliland, etc.

With a cable length of 45,000km, the 2Africa cable is the largest subsea projects in the world, connecting 46 cable landing stations in 33 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe, designed to offer international connectivity to approximately three billion people, representing 36% of the world's population. The 2Africa consortium comprises China Mobile International, Djibouti Telecom, Meta (Facebook), MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, Saudi Telecom Company (stc), Telecom Egypt, Vodafone, WIOCC, etc.

 

2Africa cable map
2Africa cable map,  Source: 2Africa Consortium

 

Owned by AFR-IX telecom, the Barcelona Cable Landing Station (Barcelona CLS) is strategically located in Sant Adrià de Besòs, eastern Barcelona. The facility is a two-story building designed by AFR-IX telecom. The new digital port has been designed to properly offer redundancy to fulfill the Tier 4 requirements, as well as four different accesses to the city main telecom infrastructures. The facility has two differentiated transformer stations connected to different power grid rings.

Besides the 2Africa cable, the Barcelona CLS is expected to host AFR-IX telecom's MEDUSA and other subsea cables. 

As in all 2Africa open access cable landing ecosystems, companies and service providers located in Spain will be able to access this international connectivity from any of the company's multiple independent facilities with direct connection to the Barcelona Cable Landing Station.