Rome / Palermo, 14 June 2021 - Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top ten global operators, announced the expansion of the Nibble network to northern Europe during a meeting held at the Sicily Hub in Palermo between Sparkle CEO Elisabetta Romano and Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs Manlio Di Stefano.

According to Spanish Cinco Días, Vodafone has announced to deploy a new extension of the 2Africa submarine cable to connect the Canary Islands and the Iberian Peninsula. Vodafone will implement the project together with the Cabildo de Tenerife through CanaLink, with the aim of offering the “necessary capacity for the next decades for voice and data traffic”.  

Very shortly, 2021, HMN Technologies will complete another industry-first: a 16-fiber-pair repeatered submarine cable system connecting Hainan Island to Hong Kong. This is another milestone project that showcases both HMN’s advances in submarine cable technology reinforcing that high fiber count, large capacity Space Division Multiplexing (SDM) systems are no longer a concept, but a fast-evolving reality.

Newington, NH, USA – June 9, 2021 – SubCom, in conjunction with Google, today announced that a contract is in force for the design, manufacture, and deployment of Firmina, a new highspeed undersea cable system connecting North and South America. The cable will run from the East Coast of the United States to Las Toninas, Argentina, with additional landings in Praia Grande, Brazil and Punta del Este, Uruguay. Designed as a twelve-fiber pair trunk, Firmina will improve access to Google services for users in South America.

Google announce on Wednesday to build the Firmina subsea cable, an open subsea cable that will run from the East Coast of the United States to Las Toninas, Argentina, with additional landings in Praia Grande, Brazil, and Punta del Este, Uruguay.

PEACE Cable International Network Co., Limited and PCCW Global announced to deploy with the Infinera ICE6 optical engine solution on the Mediterranean Segment of the Pakistan & East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) submarine cable system. With the Infinera ICE6, the PEACE submarine cable system will transmit record-breaking capacity of nearly 25Tbps per fiber pair, while laying the foundation for enhanced service scalability, flexibility and future differentiation.

HANOVER, Md. – June 8, 2021 – Marcatel, a telecommunications carrier based in Mexico, is leveraging Ciena’s (NYSE: CIEN) coherent optical technology to support a new network connecting Querétaro, Mexico, to McAllen, Texas. The network, which serves content delivery providers and wholesale carriers, allows Marcatel to offer low-latency, high-capacity data center interconnect (DCI) services at speeds up to 600Gbps across long distances to meet an ever-growing demand for bandwidth-hungry video, data, and cloud-based content.

The Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) officially announced on June 1^st that another China Telecom backbone network, AS4809, met its community-led routing security standards. MANRS accepted three other major China Telecom networks in December 2020. This announcement means that all of China Telecom's backbone networks successfully implemented the routing security best practices of MANRS.

Installation of the 700-kilometer-long submarine fiber cable started at Green Mountain’s data center on Jun 6^th. This new cable route connects the west coast of Norway with Newcastle and will significantly increase data capacity between Norway, the UK, and the rest of the world. The operation is now started and will be completed by the end of summer. The cable will be in operation in Q4 2021.

Nayatel and Facebook announced on May 26 a partnership to invest in fiber broadband in Pakistan to improve and expand connectivity across eight cities in the country. High-speed, reliable, and affordable broadband has become a basic household necessity as the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect millions across the globe. Nayatel will deploy new fiber networks to serve as the backbone infrastructure for 4G/5G mobile and fixed broadband, which is a key driver of economic growth and job creation.

The inauguration ceremony of Ellalink submarine cable system directly connecting Brazil to Europe took place in Sines, Portugal on June 1, 2021. The EllaLink cable system now enables the direct，high-bandwidth and low latency connections between Europe and Brazil, and also creates a new landing site and an innovation & data center hub in Sines – Sines Tech.

Kalaam Telecom, Bahrain's leading technology solutions provider, has announced the acquisition of Zajil International Telecom Co. (KSCC), one of Kuwait's longest-established ISP and ICT services companies, with the aim of creating a regional powerhouse which will drive digital transformation in the GCC region and beyond. 

Globenet announced that customers from Argentina, Colombia, and the United States have been activated on its new MALBEC submarine cable system. Customers can now enjoy the large capacity, high availability, and low latency rates this system provides. Malbec connects the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires, and is ready to support a future connection with Porto Alegre, in the south of Brazil.

The Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) cable system puts into commercial service the last segment linking Europe, West Africa and South Africa as of June 1st, 2021. and increases design capacity of the entire system to 20Tbps.

Converge ICT Solutions Inc. (Converge) and Keppel Midgard Holdings Pte. Ltd. (KMH), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation’s (Keppel T&T), announced on Thursday the signing of the definitive agreements for the participation of Converge in the Bifrost Cable System project. Converge and Keppel held an online signing ceremony on May 25, 2021. The Bifrost Cable System will directly connect Singapore to the west coast of North America.

The two partners on the trans-Arctic cable project Arctic Connect, the Finnish state-owned operator Cinia Ltd and Russian MegaFon, have suspended the Arctic Connect project for further assessment. Russian news agency Interfax reported on Thursday May 27, Megafon has decided to review the structure and economy of the Arctic Connect project, and it will take some time to regroup. Cinia had a formal press release on Friday May 28, annoucing the suspension of the Arctic Connect project.