According to Telstra news, the Indigo consortium comprising AARNet, Google, Indosat Ooredoo, Singtel, SubPartners and Telstra announced on January 25, 2019 a significant milestone in the implementation of the INDIGO cable system with the completion, on schedule, of the final splicing of both the INDIGO West cable and Indigo Central cable. The Indigo consortium has began the commissioning of the Indigo submarine cable system.

According to Bloomberg news, BT has botained two nationalwide domestic telecom licenses in China and become the first non-Chinese telecom company to receive nationwide licenses in China. The news has been confirmed by BT, Chinese media and government authorities.

Colt Technology Services announced on Thursday the expansion of its portfolio in Asia, with the launch of Colt Private Wave in Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Colt Private Wave is explicitly designed for businesses that require private optical solutions to ensure high security, high performance and resilient connectivity. It is designed to meet the most demanding customer needs, supporting multiple optical services or service types up to 100Gbps.

Windstream Wholesale announced recently that it is collaborating with Telxius to connect its core network to MAREA and BRUSA cable systems at the Virginia Beach Cable Landing Station. The Windstream-Telxius collaboration will provide Windstream Wholesale customers with unprecedented high-speed network connections into Europe, South America, the Caribbean and multiple points nationally across the U.S., and enhances connectivity options to Telxius' MAREA and BRUSA cable systems.

Teraco Data Environments announced on Thursday that Berkshire Partners LLC has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a majority stake in the company. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and the customary closing conditions, and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019. The Permira funds, an existing shareholder, will remain a significant investor. According to Bloomsberg, Berkshire Partners becomes the biggest shareholder in Teraco Data Environments. Teraco is the leading provider of carrier neutral colocation datacentres in Africa, hosting NAPAfrica and connecting with various subsea cables.

According to Bloomberg news, BT has botained two nationalwide domestic telecom licenses in China and become the first non-Chinese telecom company to receive nationwide licenses in China. The news has been confirmed by BT, Chinese media and government authorities.

According to Telxius, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has signed an IRU agreement with Telxius for the use of a fibre pair on MAREA cable system partially owned by Telxius. MAREA provides high capacity, low latency, route diversity. MAREA is the first open subsea cable system in the world, connecting Virginia Beach, USA, and Sopelana, Spain, with a system design capacity of 200Tbps, being the the highest capacity submarine cable in the world.

Submarine cables form the backbone of the Internet and there are over 300 subsea cables today that interconnect continents and countries. In recent years, as cloud and content providers attempt to reach more users and provide reliable and bandwidth intensive services, submarine infrastructure has exploded. The number of new submarine cables is set to grow by 50 percent in 2019 versus 2018 (source: TeleGeography’s submarine cable map).

EllaLink Ireland Ltd (EllaLink) announced on Tuesday that Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) have started construction of the EllaLink Submarine Cable System. The BELLA (Building the Europe Link to Latin America) Consortium, the major financer of EllaLink, announced on the same day that EllaLink and Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) have finalised agreements for the construction of the EllaLink submarine fibre optic cable system. EllaLink is scheduled for operation in 2020.

According to Infinera, Infinera announced the completion of a major upgrade to Australia-Japan Cable’s (AJC) submarine cable system connecting Australia, Guam and Japan. AJC tripled lit capacity on its 12,700-kilometer subsea cable system by upgrading their Infinera DTN-X network with Infinera’s fourth generation optical engine – ICE4 (Infinite Capacity Engine).

According to ARN news, the installations of Indigo Central and West subsea fibre optic cables were completed in December. Indigo Central, which connects Sydney to Perth was completed in December 24, 2018, while Indigo West which connects Singapore to Sydney was completed earlier in December. After the acceptance and commissioning testing, the Indigo Cable is expected to launch for service in early 2019.

Singapore, Sydney, Wellington, 18 December 2018 – Southern Cross Cable Network (SCCN) and its shareholders, Spark New Zealand, Singtel and Verizon Business, are pleased to announce that Telstra has entered into agreed terms to purchase a 25 per cent stake in SCCN and substantial capacity on both the existing network and the new Southern Cross NEXT subsea cable.

In March 2018, I made up my mind and published an article to share a closer look at landscape of submarine cables in India with 17 submarine cables landing in 15 cable landing stations (CLS) owned by 6 service providers. It was well received. Meanwhile 2 new submarine cable systems under construction – IOX and CACS, progressed steadily for RFS in Q4 2019. A new cable system from South Africa - SAEx2, that competes with IOX, also inched forward, though it remains to be seen if it gets funded eventually. A new cable from Singapore also appeared on the drawing board – SEAX-3.

Acacia Communications recently announced the first 400G single carrier DWDM transmission on the 6,600 km Marea submarine cable between Virginia Beach, Virginia and Bilbao, Spain. The field demonstration was conducted by Acacia in collaboration with Microsoft and Facebook, and helped to demonstrate that improvements in capacity and spectral efficiency can enable increased utilization of deployed fiber and improved network capacity. The 400G single carrier transmission was achieved with baud rate of around 70Gbaud using Acacia’s AC1200 module.

Cabo Verde and Madrid, Spain – 13^th December 2018 – Cabo Verde Telecom and EllaLink are pleased to announce the contract signature of their agreement to deliver connectivity from Europe and Latin America to Cabo Verde via the EllaLink Submarine Cable System.