Orange-Backed Consortium Launches ‘Via Africa’ Subsea Cable to Connect Nigeria, 19 Other Countries

Global telecom company Orange is backing a new 20,000-kilometre subsea cable project called Via Africa that will connect Nigeria and 19 other African countries to Europe and South Africa.

The project, announced on May 23, is meant to boost internet capacity, cut latency, and increase bandwidth for millions of users across Africa. Nigeria, as one of the landing countries, stands to benefit from better international connectivity — which could translate into lower data costs and improved digital services.

For a continent where fintech, e-commerce, cloud services, and remote work are all growing fast, infrastructure like this matters. The Via Africa cable is expected to run along the west coast of Africa, connecting key economic hubs before linking up to Europe and South Africa.

Nigeria already hosts several major subsea cables — Equiano, SAT-3, WACS, MainOne. Adding Via Africa means more diversification of international connectivity and less reliance on any single cable system. That kind of redundancy is important for stable internet services and fits into the government’s broader digital transformation push.

The project comes as data demand keeps rising across Africa, driven by more smartphone users, streaming services, and cloud-based business tools.

Sources: TechCabal, BusinessDay Nigeria