Angola Cables' record traffic growth

The increase in digital content consumption, the rapid expansion of cloud computing services, and the ever-growing demand for high-speed, low-latency connectivity are among the key factors contributing to the record levels of traffic now being recorded across the Angola Cables network

“This milestone underscores Angola Cables’ growing responsibility and responsiveness to customer needs in West African markets, with an emphasis on improved Service Level Agreements (SLA). Our status as a reliable operator, fostering strong relationships with both local and international customers, is a testament to our resilience, commitment to good connectivity, security, and product diversity. In the long term, this reinforces the TelCables Nigeria brand, strengthening its position as a trusted name in the market,” said Fernando Fernandes, CEO for TelCables Nigeria (the local operation for Nigeria and West Africa countries of Angola Cables).

Angola Cables' traffic surge

Rui Faria, executive board member and chief commercial officer for Angola Cables, a global provider of network services and digital solutions, stated that many hyperscalers, content providers, and other carriers have been using the South Atlantic configuration of the SACS, Monet, and WACS cables as a convenient redundancy option to connect to destinations in the USA, the UK, and Europe using EllaLink. “The recent cable faults experienced in parts of Africa and the Red Sea have resulted in large volumes of traffic being diverted to other cables. But apart from this, we have seen a steady and significant growth in overall traffic over our backbone network.”

“At present, the Angola Cables fibre network point is accounting for more than 70% of the internet and data traffic flows to and from Africa,” notes Faria, “hyperscalers, streaming, and gaming networks are using SACS as well as the Angola Cables’ backbone and its partner networks to connect to Europe and Asia at lower latencies.”

Angola Cables has also reported a substantial increase in traffic volumes over the Monet Cable, which connects the USA to South America, now accounting for over 20% of the data traffic between North and South America. “With the option to connect to the main centres in Europe via the EllaLink subsea cable and reduced latencies of around 30%, many companies are seeing this as an attractive option for their peering and IP Transit requirements.”

According to the Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA), Angola Cables AS 37468 is now ranked 24th in their official global rankings, making it the only African network operator in the top 50. The CAIDA rankings are determined by the ‘cone size’ or number of connections linked to its registered Autonomous System Number (ASN), and they highlight the number of direct and indirect customers or links inferred from observed BGP paths. Today, Angola Cables' capacity spans more than 80,000 km of subsea cable network, with multiple links to a growing number of data centres and global IXPs.

Faria maintains that the increase in traffic is strengthening Angola Cables’ position in both the global and African markets as a consistently reliable network service provider, enabling the company to expand its services and invest in new technologies and strategic partnerships to better serve its customers."