Submarine cable systems connecting Brazil and Africa

The South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) is a submarine cable system connecting Sangano in Angola and Fortaleza in Brazil, the world's first submarine cable system across the South Atlantic.

The SACS cable consists of 4 fiber pairs, with an initial design capacity of 40Tb/s (100Gb/s x 100 wavelengths x 4 fiber-pairs).

The SACS is owned by Angola Cables, which is joint venture of five Angolan operators Angola Telecom (51%), Unitel (31%), MSTelcom (9%), Movicel (6%) and Startel (3%).

It is said, Telebras is a partner of Angola Cables to offer cable landing for the SACS.

SACS Cable Map

The South Atlantic Inter Link (SAIL) is a 6,000-km submarine cable system connecting Kribi, Cameroon with Fortaleza, Brazil,with a branch to Equatorial Guinea.

The SAIL cable system consists of four fiber pairs, each capable of transmitting 100 wavelengths with a bandwidth of 100 Gbit/s and delivering a design capacity of 32 Tbps.

SAIL Cable Route

The SAIL cable system is invested by CAMTEL of Cameroon, and China Unicom as the landing party in Brazil., Huawei Marine is the turn-key solutions provider for the SAIL cable system. 

In Brazil, the SAIL cable system terminates at Telxius Fortaleza Cable Landing Station, seamlessly connecting with BRUSA and Sam-1 onwards to the US.

Marine installation of the SAIL cable system was successfully completed on September 4th, 2018.

SAIL cable system enables connectivity among the following routes:

  • São Paulo - Lagos 
  • São Paulo - Cape Town 
  • São Paulo - Johannesburg
  • São Paulo - Lisbon
  • São Paulo - London
  • Miami - Lagos 
  • Miami - Cape Town 
  • Miami - Johannesburg
  • Asburn, Virginia- Lagos 
  • Asburn, Virginia - Cape Town 
  • Asburn, Virginia - Johannesburg

The South Atlantic Express (SAEx1) is a 72 Tbit/s submarine cable system connecting South Africa directly to the US, linking Cape Town in South Africa, Fortaleza in Brazil and Virginia Beach, Virginia in the US, with branches to Namibia and Saint Helena.

The SAEx1 cable system is building by SAEx International Ltd, based in Mauritius with a subsidiary company (SAEx SA (Pty) Ltd) in South Africa, is building the South Atlantic Express (SAEx) cable. The company is also planning the  South Asia Express (SAEx2) , to form a unique 25000km submarine cable connecting Asia, Africa, South America and North America.

SABR is the first direct subsea  system that  South Africa to Brazil, and eventually to the US. SABR is set for commercial launch in 2020.

SABR cable route