02 November 2020: Telecom Egypt and St Helena Government (SHG) have signed an agreement to connect the Island to Telecom Egypt’s subsea system over the Equiano submarine cable system.

Telecom Egypt will be the first to provide St Helena with a fibre optic connection to the rest of the world, which is a crucial step towards the Island’s economic growth. The cable, along with the associated high-speed internet, is planned to be delivered to the Island by early 2022. 

GTT Communications, Inc. (GTT) has announced that the company has signed a definitive purchase agreement to sell its infrastructure division to I Squared Capital, an independent global infrastructure investment firm, for $2.15 billion. The infrastructure division consists of GTT’s business and activities of providing Pan-European, North American, sub-sea and trans-Atlantic fiber network and data center infrastructure services to customers. 

Seaborn Networks (Seaborn) has launched new submarine network services on Seaborn’s AMX-1 submarine network segment connecting the U.S. and Brazil. Seaborn owns a half fiber pair on AMX-1 between Rio de Janeiro and Jacksonville, Florida. Seaborn deployed on its AMX-1 cable system with Infinera’s XT Series submarine network platforms, featuring Infinite Capacity Engine (ICE) technology.

Liberty Latin America has confirmed that the company has entered into a consent judgment with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding the previously announced acquisition of AT&T’s wireless and wireline operations in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The DoJ required Liberty Latin America Ltd. (Liberty), its subsidiary, Liberty Communications of Puerto Rico LLC (LCPR), and AT&T Inc. (AT&T) to divest certain fiber-based telecommunications assets and customer accounts in Puerto Rico. The DoJ also approved WorldNet Telecommunications, Inc. (WorldNet) as the acquirer. 

Telecom Egypt, Egypt’s first integrated telecom operator and one of the largest subsea cables operators in the region, announces that it is building Egypt's largest international data center facility. Expected to be commissioned in early 2021 with access to all the global submarine cable systems that land in Egypt, the new data center is going to be the first in the country with the Uptime Institute's certifications in the Design, Constructed Facility, and Operational Sustainability categories.

Telia Company announced on Tuesday to sell its global operation Telia Carrier to Polhem Infra, an infrastructure investor owned by Swedish pension funds, for 9.45 billion Swedish kronor (€900 million), on a cash and debt free basis, at an EV/EBITDA ratio of 18.9. Telia Company has reached an agreement with Polhem Infra. At the same time, Telia Company enters a long-term strategic partnership with Telia Carrier, securing continuous world-leading network solutions to Telia’s customers. 

Cinia Ltd, as the leading party of the Cinia Alliance, in collaboration with MegaFon, are executing the development phase for the Arctic submarine cable project. The objective of the international project is to build the first trans-Arctic submarine telecom cable between Europe and Asia.

Submarine cable is highway for data transmission. Submarine networks carry more than 95 percent of the world’s intercontinental electronic communications traffic. Submarine cables are critical infrastructure, which carries more than $10 trillion worth transactions, every day.

Submarine networking has recently seen several technological evolution. Recently, many new subsea announcements with make use of innovative technologies in Dry plant and Wet Plant. One of the latest advancements in wet plant side repeater known as Repeater Pump Farming. 

Introduction

 There are different ways to meet the high traffic demand in Submarine cable. We need more capacity. Demands keeps on increasing. How we can achieve it?

More Submarine cables, more number of channels (C+L band system), more number of fiber pairs, increasing per fiber capacity, increasing channel bandwidth i.e transponder/modem capacity.

Before 2018, the focus was on increasing the per fiber pair capacity. However, it has almost reached the maximum. Then why not, increasing the capacity in system level.

Global Marine, a leading provider of subsea fibre optic cable installation and maintenance solutions to the telecoms sector, and part of the Global Marine Group, has been awarded the Desk Top Study (DTS) for the Singapore India Gateway (SING) cable system by the system Purchasers.

Kalaam Telecom Group, a leading managed solutions provider for businesses across GCC and international markets, announced recently the launch of Kalaam Network Optical Transit (KNOT), a new fiber-optic terrestrial international cable system that enhances regional and international connectivity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in partnership with Gulf Cooperation Council Interconnection Authority (GCCIA). The KNOT cable system will be fully owned and operated by Kalaam Telecom Group.

Megafon, the second-largest telecommunications company in Russia, announced on July 23 that it had launched offshore survey work for a planned $1 billion trans-Arctic subsea fiber-optic cable project that will connect Europe and Asia, the Arctic Connect subsea cable project. The offshore surveys started on August 5, undertaken by MegaFon’s joint venture with Finnish stated-owned infrastructure operator Cinia Ltd, and Russian-state-owned enterprise, Rosgeologiya.

Orient Link Pte. Ltd. (OLL) and NEC Corporation (NEC) announced recently that they have signed an agreement to build the MIST Cable System (MIST). MIST will directly connect Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and India (Mumbai and Chennai) and deliver a design capacity of more than 216 terabits per second (Tbps). Construction of the nearly 8,100-kilometer optical submarine cable is targeted to be completed by the third quarter of FY2022.

According to the FCC submarine cable landing license for the Jupiter cable system, Facebook will land its Oregon branch of the Jupiter cable system into an existing cable landing staion at Cloverdale, Oregon, the Pacific City CLS, which is owned by Microsoft Infrastructure Group, LLC (MIGL). Facebook owns two of the five fiber pairs on Jupiter's main trunk connecting Maruyama and Shima, Japan, with Hermosa Beach, California. Facebook wholly owns two fiber pairs on Jupiter's Oregon branch, landing into the Pacific City CLS at Cloverdale, Oregon.

According to the FCC Public Notice, the FCC granted submairne cable landing licenses for the JGA North and the JGA South on July 14. RTI and NEC announced the successful completion of the JGA North cable system on July 6, while the JGA South cable system has been in-service temporarily since March. The FCC also granted submarine cable landing licenses for Jupiter, Southern Cross Next in July.

According to the FCC public notice, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved the submarine cable landing license for the Southern Cross NEXT cable system as of July 16, 2020. Pacific Carriage Limited Inc. (PCLI), the US landing party of the South Cross Next, filed the application for cable landing license on August 9 2019. It took the FCC and the Executive Branch of the United States Government (also known as Team Telecom) less than 12 months to review and grant cable landing license for the Southern Cross NEXT cable system.