Equinix and Vodafone announced on Wednesday a plan to build a new subsea hub in Genoa, called Equinix GN1. Vodafone is leading all European landings along with selected other sites for the 2Africa cable system. Vodafone will land the 2Africa cable system at Genoa and use Equinix's GN1 facility as a strategic interconnection point for the subsea cable system. Equinix GN1 will have a direct fiber connection to Equinix ML5, creating stronger connectivity in Europe and contributing to building an inclusive digital society for all.

According to Brand Finance Telecoms 150 2021, Verizon leads world’s most valuable telecoms brand with brand value up 8% to US$68.9 billion, followed by AT&T, Deutsche Telecom and China Mobile in turn. Reliance Jio is the strongest and fastest growing brand in terms of brand value, with a 50% increase to US$4.8 billion. Although in difficulties, Huawei continues to lead as the world’s most valuable and strongest telecoms infrastructure brand, with a brand value of US$55.4 billion, beating Cisco and Corning respectively on brand value and brand strength, according to Brand Finance Telecoms Infrastructure 10.

Accroding to the consortium of Maldives Sri Lanka Cable system (MSC), the MSC cable system has been ready for service as of February 24, 2021.  The 840km long MSC cable system provides high-speed, low latency connectivity between Hulhumale in the Republic of Maldives and Mount Lavinia in Sri Lanka. The MSC consortium comprises Dialog Axiata of Sri Lanka and Ooredoo Maldives and Dhiraagu of Maldives. The MSC cable system is supplied by HMN Technology (legacy Huawei Marine Networks).

According to Nasdaq news, Investment firm KKR said on Monday it would acquire a majority stake in telecoms operator Telefonica Chile's fiber optic network in a deal valued at about $1 billion. 

According to  Cabo Verde Telecom (CVTelecom), the Ellalink subsea cable landed in Cape Verde on Feburary 18, 2021. The Ellalink cable mooring took place at Portinho beach, in Achada Grande Trás, in the municipality of Praia.

The London Internet Exchange (LINX), a leading interconnection hub, has seen network data traffic passed by its members across its multiple peering LANS grow substantially over the last year.

On the exchange’s primary LON1 platform in London, data traffic has increased by well over 40%. The figure is closely reflected across all of LINX’s interconnection hubs, both in the UK, and the US. Indeed, all LINX LANs have set traffic records since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Paratus, Paratus and Telecom Namibia have signed an unprecedented agreement to land the Equiano subsea cable in Namibia. Paratus and Telecom Namibia co-invest on the Equiano subsea cable project, while Paratus is the landing party. The Equiano subsea cable will provide Namibia with the necessary redundancy.

According to EllaLink, the next generation low-latency Ellalink submarine cable system landed in Sines in early January, 2021. The Ellalink cable system is expected to become fully operational in the second quarter of 2021, providing an unprecedented level of international connectivity between Europe and Latin America.

Ocean Networks (ONI) confirms the launch of its Caribbean Express (CX) cable project, to build a carrier neutral subsea cable system connecting Points of Presence between West Palm Beach (Florida) and Balboa (Panama) with branch connections to Mexico and Columbia. In addition, the system will have future connectivity to Cuba, Grand Cayman, Guatemala, Jamaica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

AARNet, Australia’s Academic and Research Network, announced recently the launch of high-bandwidth services delivering one terabit per second on the AARNet spectrum of the new Japan-Guam-Australia South cable system (JGA South) connecting Sydney, Australia and Piti, Guam. AARNet is the landing party in Sydney for the JGA South cable system and owns spectrum of one quarter fiber pair on the JGA South cable system.

According to the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for the Nigerian branch of Google's Equiano cable system, WIOCC Nigeria Limited partners with Google as the landing partner in Nigeria for the Equiano cable system, to secure local permits and build a new cable landing station in Lagos.

According to Ciena, Bulk Fiber Networks is deploying Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme submarine network solution that leverages Ciena’s 6500 Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (SLTE) on its first submarine cable system, the Havfrue cable system, to deliver virtual fiber pairs and spectrum sharing  products and services. Bulk Fiber Networks establishes the Nordic Gateway with the operation of the Havfrue cable system.

Southern Cross Cable Limited (“Southern Cross”) and Ciena announced recently to deploy GeoMesh Extreme submarine solution utilising Ciena’s 6500 Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (“SLTE”) powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optics for the new 13,494 km Southern Cross NEXT (“NEXT”) submarine cable in the Pacific.

According to PEACE Cable International Network Co. Ltd, the termination and interconnection equipment of the PEACE cable system will be located at Interxion’s MRS2 data centre in Marseille, France, pursuant to a cooperative partnership with PCCW GLOBAL and Interxion. PEACE cable will  enable low-latency access to over 160 connectivity providers along with multiple content, cloud, gaming and video streaming platforms at Interxion's Marseille campus, including MRS1, MRS2 and MRS3.

Orange landed the 6800km tranatlantic Amitié cable on a beach in the district of Le Porge, near Bordeaux (Gironde) on Monday, Feburary 8. With nearly 800km of fibre optic cable laid, this stage represents the first step of the Amitié cable’s roll-out. The Amitié cable system is scheduled for service in early 2022, to connect the state of Massachusetts, USA; Le Porge, France; and Bude, UK.

The transatlantic route is one of the busiest in the world and Dunant has come to channel the enormous increase in data and content traffic between Europe and the United States. Dunant is a new generation transatlantic cable, 6,600 km long, that connects the United States with the French Atlantic coast, and which now, in combination with MAREA, configures one of the routes with the lowest latency and the highest capacity in the world.