In the Wall Street Journal the company decided to talk about this disproportionate operation, called "Simba". Very few details have so far been revealed about the project. We only know that it would be connected to existing access points, particularly on some beaches on the east, north and west coasts.

Surrounding Africa with a gigantic submarine fibre optic cable would allow almost the entire population to enjoy the Internet. Facebook knows that to extend, it must absolutely attack this continent inhabited by more than 1.2 billion people and which is not yet very well connected to the rest of the world. This is due to infrastructure that is still under development and completely uncovered areas. So if several million Africans could connect to the Internet tomorrow and create a Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram account, the social network would save a lot of users in a very short time.

However, there would not yet be a signed agreement for the installation of this huge cable. And this is not the first time Facebook has talked about installing an underwater cable to connect the world. Facebook was pulling a transatlantic cable over 6,500 kilometers long, Marea, in 2017 with the help of Microsoft. The installation began in 2016 and provided a stable connection in 2018 by connecting Virginia Beach, United States to Bilbao, Spain.

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Source : Siècle Digital

LyonIX, the Lyon Internet eXchange Point, has been hosting since May 2013 an OpenStreetMap (OSM ) server, a free and collaborative mapping project. From the very beginning, the server hosted by the Lyon IXP sent the content of the project mainly in Africa and parts of the Middle East. Today 100% of OpenStreetMap content served in Africa comes from the server hosted by LyonIX. Source: official website of OSM http://dns.openstreetmap.org/tile.openstreetmap.org.html

About OpenStreetMap

Launched in 2004, OpenStreetMap is an international collaborative project. Its purpose is to produce a participatory world map, free of law. So everyone can make changes, from the name correction of a street to the creation of thematic maps. Today there is a large number of various maps, such as power grids, the land registry for some countries, or the mapping of flooded areas in Sudan in order to perform humanitarian aid actions.

This project offers a variety of interests and applications now available in Africa in good conditions of use and flow. OpenStreetMap server is hosted on LyonIX, the first regional Internet eXchange Point in France. It has been created in 2001 and has now more than 70 interconnected members. LyonIX is an Internet infrastructure that allows the participants to exchange data at a very high speed Internet: Telecom operators, Internet service providers, IT companies, large companies, local authorities and public institutions.

Through this association, people living in Africa now have access to the complete maps, in good quality. They are editable and available mainly at very high speed Internet. This is an opportunity for African people to optimize, both locally and internationally, by adding their comments, or creating special maps according to their needs, and, freely use them.

For more information:

www.lyonix.net

www.openstreetmap.org