This month we’ll see the first direct fiber optic route between São Paulo and New York—the Seabras-1. (The final splice was reported in July.)
So why does this matter? Lots of new cables are in the works. In fact, Latin America itself is going through a submarine cable boom.
Last week TeleGeography Senior Analyst Patrick Christian headed to the African Peering and Interconnection Forum, where he presented on the state of the continent's local traffic, their reliance on Europe, and the promise of new cloud data centers.
For anyone who couldn't be in Abidjan, we captured the highlights for you below.
About a year ago I spoke with Senior Analyst Patrick Christian about the local exchange of content in Africa. He gave me a crash course in capacity—how content providers in Africa generally host their content abroad because the cost to do so has always been much lower.
We talked caching, local exchange, and traffic.
With Patrick prepping for a presentation at the 2017 African Peering and Interconnection Forum, it was the perfect opportunity to check in. I got lots of updates about the state of local content, as well as the scoop on the big new story in Sub-Saharan Africa: the coming of the cloud.
No one likes a delayed flight, much less a canceled one. But that's exactly what happened in Pakistan following a drastic slowdown of the internet, which was the result of a submarine cable fault.
We've been reading up on this story, as well as a new study about victims of DDoS attacks, spectrum in South Africa, and mobile disruptor Reliance Jio Infocomm. Scope out our reading list below.
Microsoft recently announced that it plans to bring two cloud data centers online in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
If other regions are indicators—like South America and Australia—other cloud providers could follow suit, making South Africa a cloud hub for Africa.
When the MainOne Submarine Fiber Cable System went down in mid-June, what were the steps taken to restore service on July 3?
What's on our screens this July? Well, we've been catching up on the 23-day saga that left Somalia without internet. The business impacts alone are staggering—it's a must-read.
We've also been scoping out San Marino's 5G mobile network, as well as the UK's new 5G research initiative. Peruse all of these stories (and more) below.
