Angola Cables and DE-CIX Announce Long-Term Strategic Partnership for African Continent

LUANDA, ANGOLA--(Marketwired - Jun 19, 2014) - Angola Cables, a leading Angolan operator of fiber-optic submarine cables, announces a strategic partnership with DE-CIX, the world's leading Internet exchange operator headquartered in Frankfurt am Main (Germany). The two companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that establishes a long-term collaboration and creates the foundations of a new neutral interconnection environment in the Republic of Angola and in the Southern African Region.

Africa is often referred to as the "dark continent," with Internet and telephony penetration rates some of the lowest in the world. That, however, is changing rapidly, with projects like the West African Cable System (WACS) and the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) being planned and deployed to deliver much-needed connectivity to the continent. Angola hosts one of the landing sites for WACS and the African landing site for SACS. Angola Cables is the company managing the Angolan participation in both these projects.

Angola Cables will be supported by DE-CIX via the MOU, as the company aims to create an enhanced interconnection environment to deliver more robust Internet services throughout the region. Despite the continent of Africa collectively reporting less than 1 Terabits per second of traffic today, the Republic of Angola currently reports up to 20 Gigabits/s. Demand is expected to rise across Africa to as much as 10 Terabits/s by 2020, according to latest reports available from TeleGeography.

"Angola is at an important point in its history," confirms António Nunes, President of Angola Cables. "The MOU comes at a critical time in the development of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Internet market, as major global and local players increasingly face the challenge of promoting innovative Internet services while continuing to ensure safe and effective online usage. DE-CIX has experience in developing strong Internet ecosystems around the world, and we look forward to working with them." 

"The German Internet market has grown substantially over the past few years and is an excellent example of a successful partnership between industry and related stakeholders," states Harald A. Summa, Executive Board Member of DE-CIX International AG. "Likewise, the Internet market within SADC has developed quickly over the past few years, providing opportunity for further development and expansion. Angola Cables is an innovator, playing a pivotal role in the development of the entire region. DE-CIX is delighted to sign this MOU, which opens doors for further cooperation between our two organizations and enables us to promote the growth of the Internet sector in Africa for the future."

About Angola Cables
Angola Cables is a telecommunications company under Angolan law, formed in 2009 by the five major telecom operators in Angola. This company is driven by its shareholders' vision and government strategy to transform Angola into one of the main African hubs. Its main objective is to support the development of the telecommunications sector in Angola and in Africa, to guarantee operators quality international links and to strengthen interconnection between operators in the region, as well as with the rest of the world. The company is responsible for the management and development of WACS in Angola, and it provides the international transmission telecommunications to all operators in order to increase the interconnection between Angola and the world.

Its mission is:

• To support the development of the telecommunications sector in Angola and in Africa;
• To offer national operators international connectivity with high quality, constant availability and sufficient capacity to meet the needs of the market;
• To develop interconnections between operators in the region and between them and the rest of the world.

Its vision:
Become an African telecommunications hub.

For more information about Angola Cables, please visit www.angolacables.co.ao.

About DE-CIX
Founded in 1995, DE-CIX in Frankfurt is the leading operator of Ethernet-based carrier and ISP interconnection worldwide. DE-CIX facilitates the exchange of IP traffic between networks through a distributed, failsafe and scalable infrastructure in various metro markets across Germany and in the Middle East. This includes broadband networks, hosting providers, content providers and cloud computing players. More than 500 ISPs from over 50 countries use DE-CIX to handle a large fraction of their Internet traffic and make DE-CIX the world's largest interconnection facility that supports peering. DE-CIX's customer base includes the world's leading players, such as 1&1, Akamai, China Telecom, Facebook, Google and Telefonica.

The company began its international growth with the takeover in 2012 of the operations of UAE-IX in Dubai, UAE, the country's first carrier-neutral interconnection and peering platform. DE-CIX is a wholly owned subsidiary of eco e.V., the world's largest Internet industry association. Further information is available at: www.de-cix.net.