Meta is increasing its investments in Africa’s digital infrastructure to overcome submarine cable cuts while laying the foundation for a more resilient internet backbone across the continent.
At the recent African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF), Meta’s Edge Strategy Manager, Ben Ryall, noted the pressing need for stable connectivity.
He explained how multiple simultaneous submarine and terrestrial outages earlier this year tested Africa’s internet resilience. According to him, Meta had to reroute traffic across alternative systems while maximising available bandwidth through its content delivery network (CDN) controllers.
“When multiple cuts happened, our infrastructure became constrained. We turned up additional capacity on alternative systems, but parts of our metros were temporarily disconnected. Traffic had to be served out of alternative metros, both within and outside the region,” Ryall said.
The outages revealed Africa’s heavy dependence on a limited number of undersea cables. Nigeria alone has suffered over 13,000 fibre cuts in 18 months, a sign of the fragility of terrestrial infrastructure.
Ryall noted that Meta’s CDN controllers helped mitigate the situation by delivering traffic as locally as possible, but he admitted that extreme failures sometimes force services to be routed outside the country.
Despite these challenges, Meta is doubling down on its commitment to expand its edge presence. The company already operates more than 80 Edge Points of Presence (PoPs) across Africa, with in-network appliances at internet exchanges in Nigeria, Ghana, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
These appliances ensure pictures, videos, and calls are delivered within the country, cutting latency from around 150 milliseconds to under 25 milliseconds, a critical improvement for real-time applications like video streaming and voice services.
Ryall revealed that Meta is not just patching existing gaps but also planning for the long term. “We plan to build a backbone-connected PoP (as32934) in 2026. This will enable us to deliver the full product family in-country. The 2Africa landing in the DRC makes this possible, alongside new metro and terrestrial fibre investments,” he said.
Africa, home to 18% of the world’s population but contributing just 4% of global GDP, faces a high digital divide. With its population projected to hit 2.1 billion by 2050, the demand for reliable internet will only accelerate.
The expansion of subsea cables like Meta’s 2Africa, the world’s largest at 45,000 km, and new facilities such as Lagos’s LKK2 data centre signal a race to secure Africa’s digital future.
Stakeholders in the industry warn, however, that without more diversified paths and stronger terrestrial networks, the continent risks repeated disruptions, and investments in Africa’s digital infrastructure, such as those made by Meta, must be aware of this.
The tech giant’s strategy is to build redundancy, enhance local interconnections, and ensure that Africans can access the same level of digital experience as users in developed economies.
