This is the view of Workonline Communications, one of the leading providers of wholesale IP transit services in Africa, commenting on recent disruptions to internet connectivity across the continent due to multiple undersea cable faults.

“The cable breaks on both sides of the continent have highlighted the issue of the lack of capacity to support Africa’s burgeoning internet requirements,” says Edward Lawrence of the Workonline Group. 

“There are 574 active and planned submarine cables across the globe, yet South Africa only has 10 that connect it to the rest of the world, and seven of these are currently out of action.”

In February 2024, three vital cables—AAE-1, EIG, and SEACOM—connecting the east coast of Africa to Europe were disrupted, allegedly due to vandalism by the Houthis.

Then, on March 14, 2024, four out of the five west coast cables—SAT3, WACS, ACE, and MainOne—were affected, reportedly by an undersea rock fall near Ivory Coast. These incidents, in relation to the undersea cable, have significantly impacted internet connectivity, not only in South Africa but across the entire continent.

The capacity constraints are further complicated by the time it takes to not only repair submarine cables, but also to lay new infrastructure. Lawrence explains that it can take 18 months or longer to plan for new cables, and a further two years or more to actually build and commission them.

“We’re fortunate that due to our investment in Africa and abroad, we are able to be more nimble than most and can increase our undersea capacity at speed. We’ve designed our network to be as resilient as possible, acquiring capacity on the most stable routes we can find. Incremental capacity, or augments as they are referred to, require us to acquire hundreds of Gbps of capacity at a time, so we rely on our deep relationships which we’ve developed across the industry.” 

Through strategic partnerships and investments in mega Points of Presence (PoPs) across Africa, Workonline remains at the forefront of delivering high-quality IP transit services to meet the evolving needs of ISPs and CDNs in Africa.

“We understand the critical importance of internet connectivity in today’s digital age,” added Lawrence. “As such, we are committed to proactively managing network disruptions and minimizing downtime to provide our customers with the continuity they need to thrive in a competitive landscape.”

Workonline (AS 37271), founded in 2006, is one of the largest IP transit networks in Africa. The company operates mega PoPs across South, East and West Africa, Europe, and Asia, and is continually expanding its infrastructure across the African continent.

Rack Centre, a Tier III Carrier and Cloud neutral data centre in West Africa, has expanded its reach of available interconnection services with the addition of Workonline Communications, one of the largest IP network providers in Africa, to the enviable list of its growing marketplace.

Workonline Communications (AS 37271), founded in 2006, has megaPoPs across Africa including Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, and was the first African wholesale IP transit provider to deploy Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) Origin Validation (OV) to improve the security of Internet routing in 2019.

The company specializes in providing wholesale IP transit (IPT), remote peering, and Layer 2 Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) services.

To further enhance its West African presence, Workonline Communications launched its first Point of Presence (PoP) in Nigeria. The company’s new megaPoP which went live in late 2022 was launched on the strength of the Rack Centre data centre in Lagos with the readiness to 10Gbps and 100Gbps services.

Welcoming Workonline Communications to Rack Centre, Jasper Lankhorst, the Group Chief Executive Officer, reiterated the benefit of being part of the rich carrier and ISP ecosystem provided by Rack Centre’s marketplace which now creates an opportunity for customers to get access to top notch services offered by Workonline Communications.

Rack Centre’s carrier and cloud-neutral ecosystem allows customers the freedom of choice to interconnect with a variety of network service providers, whether it be IP transit, Peering, carrier services or cloud onramps. Our data centre has always maintained a 100 per cent uptime since inception and our customers enjoy full neutral access and uncapped interconnect capacities”, he said.

Benjamin Deveaux, Head of Business Development at Workonline Group explaining the mission of the company in Africa, said, “When content providers deploy in a market, they can reduce the time it takes to load the content they serve over the internet.  Although many content networks have now deployed in parts of Africa, there is still around 80% of Africa’s Internet capacity which goes back to Europe where content is hosted. Workonline is on a mission to help Africa keep traffic on the continent to increase the quality for the user and develop the African Internet economy.”

In the bid to consolidate its leadership position and expand its current campus, Rack Centre is developing one of the most efficient and sustainable data centres in Lagos, Nigeria and across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Rack Centre’s rich ecosystem includes 56+ telecommunication carriers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), global Tier 1 networks, and pan Africa international carriers, including direct interconnections to all five undersea cables serving the South Atlantic Coast of Africa including Equiano and in the foreseeable future 2Africa and every country on the Atlantic coast of Africa.

Rack Centre became the first International Finance Corporation (IFC) EDGE-certified data centre in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Officially making this the first Green Certified Data Centre in Africa and the most connected facility in the region, according to its PeeringDB ranking.