Orange announced on Friday its collaboration with Google on the 6,600km Dunant submarine cable connecting the United States to the French Atlantic coast.  Orange will be the French landing partner on the Dunant cable project, build and operate the landing station on the French Atlantic coast and provide the backhaul service to Paris. Earlier in July, Google and TE SubCom announced to build the Dunant submarine cable system, as the second private cable invested and owned by Google. 

Paris, October 04, 2018 – SAEx International Ltd and Alcatel Submarine Networks, a subsidiary of Nokia, today announced they have signed an agreement to commence desk top study, permitting and survey activities for a new 25,000km submarine cable network linking Asia, South Africa and the Americas. SAEx will provide both capacity and redundancy to meet the ever-increasing demand for bandwidth hungry markets with ultra-broadband access around the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, enhancing the role of digital connectivity in regional economic development.

According to Telxius, MAREA cable system has incresed its design capacity to 200Tbps from its initial 160Tbps. MAREA cable project jointly completed by Facebook, Microsoft and Telxius is shortlisted as the Project of the Year - Subsea for the Global Carrier Awards 2018.

SAEx International Ltd, a Mauritian company with its principal office in Mauritius, announced recently its plans to expand its reach to the US East Coast through Sparkle’s Pan-American network, in line with SAEx business model based on cooperation with other operators. It is a good solution to use Sparkle's existing and operating fiber pairs in Seabras-1 cable system to extend SAEx1 cable to the US. 

Tokyo, Japan and Luanda, Angola, 1 October 2018 - Angola Cables S.A. and NEC Corporation  (NEC; TSE: 6701) announced today that the construction of the world's first submarine cable system across the South Atlantic has been completed and is now ready for commercial service. The South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) will connect Angola and Brazil, directly linking the African continent to Latin America across the South Atlantic for the first time, enabling high speed and large capacity international data transmissions, spurring trade and economic growth in both regions.

At the end of August 2018, during the fourth Asia-Pacific Cable Summit, Hengtong Marine Cable System Co., Ltd. signed a memorandum and agreement with Pakistani Internet service provider Cybernet and Djibouti Telecom on the PEACE submarine cable project. On September 28, 2018, Sun Xiaohua, Chief Operating Officer of Hengtong Marine Cable System Co., Ltd., represented Hengtong to accept an exclusive interview with Network Telecom on the PEACE submarine cable project during Submarine Network World 2018.

Global Carrier Awards event is wholesale telecom's' largest global industry celebration. Taking place as part of Capacity Europe 2018, The Global Carrier Awards 2018 will unite 400+ industry leaders from across the international carrier community for an evening packed with fine wining and dining, fantastic live entertainment and plenty of big winners to toast and applaud! Capacity Media announced the shortlisted candidates for the Global Carrier Awards 2018 on September 24^th, 2018.

According to Telstra Global, the Indigo Consortium announed on Wednesday 19, Septermber 2018 a significant milestone in the implementation of the INDIGO subsea cable system with the landing of the INDIGO West cable at Floreat Beach in Perth. This marks the completion of work to lay the first section of cable across approximately 2400km from Christmas Island to Perth. Work to lay the second section of the INDIGO West cable between Singapore and Indonesia will start this month and is expected to be completed by the end of December 2018. The Indigo Consortium comprises AARNet, Google, Indosat Ooredoo, Singtel, SubPartners (acquired by Superloop) and Telstra.

Telecom Egypt (TE) announced on Monday it has concluded the acquisition of the Middle East and North Africa Submarine Cable (MENA Cable) from Orascom Investment Holding (OIH) through its subsidiary Egyptian International Submarine Cable Company (EISCC) at a total value of $90 million. The acquisition of MENA cable system was approved by its Board of Directors in May 2018.

2018-2022 will be the golden era of submarine cable systems. Nearly 40 submarine cable systems in different stages of planning and implementation will go live in this period globally, taking total length of submarine cables operational from 1.2 million kms to 1.5 million kms with nearly 500 submarine cables. The volume play will bring economies of scale and with heightened competition make submarine cable construction more cost effective from current benchmark of $20-40k per km. Submarine cable and photonics associated with it is also on steep technology evolution curve, having reached 200G and poised for 400G leap by 2020.

TE Connectivity, a maker of electrical connectors and sensors based in Switzerland with U.S. headquarters and executive offices in Berwyn,  said Monday that it had reached an agreement to sell its undersea communications business, called SubCom, for $325 million.

The buyer of SubCom, which rolls cable across the ocean floor for Google, Facebook, and other large tech and telecom enterprises from its specially-designed ships, is Cerberus Capital Management LP, a Washington-based private-equity giant that owns Acme Markets and other companies.

WALL, NJ – September 18, 2018 – NJFX, the first and only carrier-neutral Cable Landing Station Campus in the U.S to offer Tier 3, carrier-neutral data center capabilities, announces that the HAVFRUE (also known as AEC-2) transatlantic subsea cable system will land at its colocation campus, in Wall, New Jersey. The HAVFRUE subsea cable will be constructed between New Jersey and Denmark, with branch connection to Ireland and Norway, by a consortium that includes Aqua Comms, Bulk Infrastructure, Google and Facebook. The consortium members selected to land the HAVFRUE system in New Jersey at the NJFX Tier 3 by the Subsea Colocation campus.

Connecting the west and east gateways becomes a milestone in Telin's history. Through IGG, Telin makes North America and Western Europe well connected. IGG is the hub bridging the two cable systems, the SEA-US with the SEA-ME-WE 5, in South East Asia. As a global digital solution, Telin has answered the problem of increasing demand for better quality of communication for a larger part of the world. A wider connectivity also means a greater opportunity for you to capture your new emerging market.

NEW YORK, NY, September 17, 2018 – Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. (“Cerberus”) today announced that one of its affiliates has entered into an agreement with TE Connectivity Ltd. (“TE”) under which Cerberus will acquire TE’s Subsea Communications business (“SubCom”).

It’s taken almost two years to construct; involved more than five years of planning; seen 4600km of undersea cable laid, at times kilometres down to the ocean bed; cost $US170m; and involved more than 60 staff but today marks the fully operational start of Australia’s newest, fastest and most direct connectivity route into Asia.