Submarine cables form the backbone of the Internet and there are over 300 subsea cables today that interconnect continents and countries. In recent years, as cloud and content providers attempt to reach more users and provide reliable and bandwidth intensive services, submarine infrastructure has exploded. The number of new submarine cables is set to grow by 50 percent in 2019 versus 2018 (source: TeleGeography’s submarine cable map).

EllaLink Ireland Ltd (EllaLink) announced on Tuesday that Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) have started construction of the EllaLink Submarine Cable System. The BELLA (Building the Europe Link to Latin America) Consortium, the major financer of EllaLink, announced on the same day that EllaLink and Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) have finalised agreements for the construction of the EllaLink submarine fibre optic cable system. EllaLink is scheduled for operation in 2020.

According to Infinera, Infinera announced the completion of a major upgrade to Australia-Japan Cable’s (AJC) submarine cable system connecting Australia, Guam and Japan. AJC tripled lit capacity on its 12,700-kilometer subsea cable system by upgrading their Infinera DTN-X network with Infinera’s fourth generation optical engine – ICE4 (Infinite Capacity Engine).

According to ARN news, the installations of Indigo Central and West subsea fibre optic cables were completed in December. Indigo Central, which connects Sydney to Perth was completed in December 24, 2018, while Indigo West which connects Singapore to Sydney was completed earlier in December. After the acceptance and commissioning testing, the Indigo Cable is expected to launch for service in early 2019.

Singapore, Sydney, Wellington, 18 December 2018 – Southern Cross Cable Network (SCCN) and its shareholders, Spark New Zealand, Singtel and Verizon Business, are pleased to announce that Telstra has entered into agreed terms to purchase a 25 per cent stake in SCCN and substantial capacity on both the existing network and the new Southern Cross NEXT subsea cable.

In March 2018, I made up my mind and published an article to share a closer look at landscape of submarine cables in India with 17 submarine cables landing in 15 cable landing stations (CLS) owned by 6 service providers. It was well received. Meanwhile 2 new submarine cable systems under construction – IOX and CACS, progressed steadily for RFS in Q4 2019. A new cable system from South Africa - SAEx2, that competes with IOX, also inched forward, though it remains to be seen if it gets funded eventually. A new cable from Singapore also appeared on the drawing board – SEAX-3.

Acacia Communications recently announced the first 400G single carrier DWDM transmission on the 6,600 km Marea submarine cable between Virginia Beach, Virginia and Bilbao, Spain. The field demonstration was conducted by Acacia in collaboration with Microsoft and Facebook, and helped to demonstrate that improvements in capacity and spectral efficiency can enable increased utilization of deployed fiber and improved network capacity. The 400G single carrier transmission was achieved with baud rate of around 70Gbaud using Acacia’s AC1200 module.

Cabo Verde and Madrid, Spain – 13^th December 2018 – Cabo Verde Telecom and EllaLink are pleased to announce the contract signature of their agreement to deliver connectivity from Europe and Latin America to Cabo Verde via the EllaLink Submarine Cable System.

Hemisphere Cable Company, S.L. a company duly constituted under the Laws of the Kingdom of Spain, having its registered office in Tenerife (Canary Islands), Spain (hereinafter referred to as “HCC”), announced recently its plans for investing in a new submarine cable infrastructure laying down a first optic cable project named WASACE 1, a direct route from Europe to Latin America. WASACE 1 cable system will connect Fortaleza, the Canary Islands and Seixal with additional branches in Cape Verde, Madeira and Casablanca.

Private global networks for multinational companies are based on promised physical network diversity. If pushed for additional clarity, maybe a KMZ, route map or subsea cable listing would be provided.  This is a solid approach but is only good for that specific time and that specific setup. There are thousands of miles of subsea cables bridging the gap between you and your colleague in Brazil, or your leadership team in London, or the data center that is hosting the app you just launched. Today, with our aging subsea system and technology like MPLS becoming old-school with SDN platforms reducing costs and increasing performance, traditional carriers need to educate their Enterprise customers on a new reality in terms of local and global network diversity.

According to recent statistics, over 4 billion people still lack internet access, or at best, a sufficiently reliable connection.

Of those who do, a large proportion still experience limited capacity, which means they suffer restricted usage. Unsurprisingly, in most cases these individuals are concentrated in developing areas of the world.

Post 2015 we left behind the era of submarine cables that took off in mid-1990’s, stumbled in early 2000’s and recovered cautiously post 2010 and witnessed an unprecedented surge post 2015, flagging off a golden era. Over 2010-2015, it was observed time and again that lifecycle management of large consortia cable systems were really challenging. Hence post 2015, the size of consortiums reduced significantly and settled for 3-6 members in most cases, except for the Asia-Europe corridor. Along with it, number of countries connected also reduced to 2-4, albeit with few exceptions. This was enabled by lower cost of submarine cable construction, that dropped to $25,000 to $35,000 per kilometer. One of the main reasons for shrinking size of consortiums was overzealous preference for fiber pair(s) ownership instead of tranche of capacity proportional to investment, for greater independence and flexibility and deploy new optical transmission technology to multiplex more wavelengths per fiber pair and pack greater capacity in each wavelength. This led to new service innovations and optical spectrum and fractionated or virtual fiber pair became standard service offering creating affordably scalable models, allowing new consortium members to onboard midway.

China Telecom (Africa and Middle East) Limited (CTMEA), the Middle East and Africa subsidiaryof China Telecom Global (CTG), one of the world’s largest providers of integrated telecommunication services, has recently announced that it is establishing an inter-connection network and telecommunications hub to support growing traffic demands at Teraco data center in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. Teraco is Africa’s first vendor neutral data centre.

Teraco, Africa’s largest vendor neutral colocation data centre provider has said that clients currently making use of its data centres in Cape Town and Johannesburg are set to benefit from the cross connection to the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) – Africa’s first transatlantic link connecting Africa to the Americas.

Owned by Angola Cables, the new subsea network provides the most direct routing for internet traffic across the Atlantic and according to Teraco, will bring immense opportunity for clients within the data centre.

Angola Cables announced recently that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Broadband Infraco to facilitate internet connectivity into Africa. Broadband Infraco provides extensive regional long-distance network coverage in South Africa. Angola Cables owns WACS, SACS and Monet subsea networks connecting South Africa to Brazil and the United States. The cooperation will offer South African consumers an improved usage and low-latency internet connectivity.