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.

On stage sat a powerhouse panel: Meta, Open Access Data Centres, Airtel Africa, Digital Realty, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), and TeleGeography, all with one mission: to unlock faster, more reliable content delivery for millions of Nigerians.

The session, aptly titled “Content at the Edge: Unlocking Faster and More Reliable Experiences”, followed a keynote by Meta’s Michelle Opiyo, who spotlighted the company’s growing edge infrastructure across Africa. From there, the discussion unraveled into an honest look at Nigeria’s unique challenges—and its immense opportunities.

Nigeria’s Demographic Advantage

Meta’s Ben Ryall painted the big picture: “Nigeria is Africa’s largest country by population, and its youth are hungry for content. The split between enterprise demand and young content-driven consumers is a goldmine for local CDNs and tailored strategies.”

The Bottlenecks: Pricing and Distribution

But the road isn’t smooth. IXPN’s Muhammed Rudman recalled early conversations with Netflix: “Back in 2007, they didn’t see the ROI. Today, subsea cables have brought traffic to Lagos, but outside the city, costs are still too high.”

In Lagos, bandwidth can be as cheap as $1 per Mbps, but beyond the city limits, the price jumps to around $30. For Digital Realty’s Ikechukwu Nnamani, this mismatch is a Catch-22: “The market won’t mature without investment, but investors want to see maturity first.”

Rethinking Models: From Sachets to Ecosystems

Dr. Ayotunde Coker, CEO of Open Access Data Centres, challenged the industry to embrace Africa’s informal economy with “sachet pricing”, daily or weekly data access.

He also noted that colocation facilities are evolving: “We’re building ecosystems where creators, carriers, and CDNs meet, not just renting out power and space.”

Fiber Cuts and the Latency Dilemma

Still, Nigeria’s fragile infrastructure looms large. In just 18 months, 13,000 fibre cuts were recorded, according to data shared at the forum.

MTN already runs 25,000km of fibre, while government plans to push that to 90,000km, but more fibre also means more exposure to disruption.

Rudman warned that Lagos alone cannot bear Nigeria’s digital load: “If your game downloads are only cached in Lagos, users in Kano will still suffer. We have to go inward.”

Expanding the Edge

Meta is already taking that advice to heart. Beyond its Lagos Point of Presence (PoP), the company is building a second PoP in Port Harcourt to serve the South-South. IXPN, too, is preparing to expand interconnection deeper into the regions, urging mobile operators to peer beyond Lagos.

A Call for Collaboration

The session closed on a note of unity. The panelists agreed: infrastructure is coming, but it won’t be enough without coordinated investment, ecosystem collaboration, and regulatory support.

“This is more than fibre and data centres,” Nnamani concluded. “This is about bringing content closer to the people. The hyperscalers, the platforms, the carriers, it’s time for all of us to step up together.”

The 15th edition of AfPIF ended with optimism, but also a challenge: Nigeria’s digital future won’t be built by one player alone. The edge must be conquered, together.