24 December 2019
St Helena Government (SHG) is pleased to announce the signing of a contract with Google, to connect St Helena to Phase 1 of the Equiano Subsea Cable Project. This is one step closer to providing the first fibre optic connectivity from St Helena to the outside world through both Europe and South Africa. Today’s announcement follows the signing of the Letter of Intent in July this year to secure a Branch in Phase 1 of the Equiano Project.
Connecting to Equiano meets SHG’s timing and budgetary requirements for the European Development Fund and supports the Digital ICT Strategy for St Helena.
Chairman of the Economic Development Committee, Councillor Lawson Henry, said:
“This is a huge positive step for St Helena, and one of a number of progressive steps that shall be announced over the next two years relating to development of digital opportunities on St Helena. I’d like to thank the team within St Helena Government Corporate Services, Pelagian and Keystone Law, and of course Google, for meeting this milestone.”
SHG’s Financial Secretary, Dax Richards, added:
“This is great news for the Island. Significant additional economic development on St Helena is conditional on improved connectivity and accessibility, and therefore the delivery of the Fibre Project is crucial to economic growth. We are pleased to reach an agreement with Google and look forward to working with them on this Project.
“The delivery of the Fibre Project is a key action in the Sustainable Economic Development Plan – in order to develop the satellite ground stations, financial services, work from home, academia research and conferences, film location and tourism sectors.”
Global Network Infrastructure Strategy, Submarine, Google, Jayne Stowell, concluded:
“We are excited to collaborate with SHG to announce the Equiano branch into St Helena. We are deeply committed to boosting the world’s connectivity as well as ensuring countries and communities benefit from the Equiano cable.”
The branch between the main trunk of the Equiano cable and the Island will be 1140km long. The target is to deliver the cable and associated high speed internet to St Helena by early 2022; providing the cable laying, landing station and associated planning permissions and works to start the service proceed on time.
This cable will be capable of providing the Island with scalable connectivity, ranging from a few hundred gigabits up to multiple terabits, as demand varies. On that basis it allows for the most cost effective growth of bandwidth needs for the Island.
#DigitalStrategy #FibreOpticCable #SEDP
SHG
24 December 2019