Guinea's Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy (MPTEN) reportedly plans to interconnect the country’s national fibre optic network with the network of Côte d'Ivoire in yet another move to boost its international capacity.
According to a LinkedIn post from MPTEN, minister Rose Pola Pricemou revealed the plan at a MPTEN cabinet meeting on Monday.
No other details were given, including a timeline, but the Côte d'Ivoire interconnection plan was listed alongside MPTEN’s current move to finalise a framework agreement for a similar interconnection plan with Sierra Leone.
In June, MPTEN facilitated a deal between the Société De Gestion Et D'exploitation Du Backbone National De La Guinée (SOGEB, the state company in charge of managing Guinea’s national backbone) and Malian Transmission and Broadcasting Company (SMTD) to interconnect the two countries’ fibre optic networks.
The flurry of deals is in response to the rash of subsea cable outages plaguing African countries this year that have disrupted internet communications across the continent. Guinea only has a single international subsea link via the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) system that runs along the west coast from South Africa to France.
However, the deals with Sierra Leone and Mali don’t add much redundancy to Guinea’s international connectivity, as Sierra Leone only has one international subsea link (also on ACE), while landlocked Mali has none.
Côte d'Ivoire, by contrast, hosts landing points for six subsea cables: 2Africa, ACE, MainOne, Maroc Telecom West Africa, SAT-3/WASC and West Africa Cable System (WACS).
MPTEN has said that Guinea's interconnection with neighboring countries will improve Internet access, strengthen network coverage and reduce communication costs, according to the Ecofin news agency.
