According to Haaretz.com, Israel will soon have a critical place on Google’s expanding global fiber optic network, being a part of Google's Blue-Raman submarine cable connecting India to Italy through Israel. Google's Blue-Raman cable will create a new Europe-Asia connectitivity route with a combination of submarine and terrestrial cables connecting Asia and Europe across Israel and several Arab countries, bypassing Egypt.

According to FCC public notices, the FCC granted a Special Temporary Authority (STA) on Wednesday April 8,2020, allowing Google to begin commercial operation of limited portions of the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) connecting the United States with Taiwan. The STA for the commercial operation of PLCN US-Taiwan segment is valid for 180 days, expiring on October 5, 2020. The grant of authority by the FCC is followed a petition from the Department of Justice concerning Google LLC’s application to operate the PLCN subsea cable on Wednesday. 

According to The Saigon Times, the Asia America Gateway (AAG) undersea cable system encountered an incident on Friday, April 3,2020. This is the first submarine cable incident in Vietnam in 2020, it has affected Vietnam’s international internet traffic.

SUNeVision Holdings Ltd. (“SUNeVision”), the owner of MEGA Campus and one of the largest data centre providers in Hong Kong, announced a new Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute site on MEGA Campus in Hong Kong. According to Microsoft, the new Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute site is located at Mega-iAdvantage, the #1 Data Centre in Hong Kong, as Misrosoft Azure ExpressRoute location Hong Kong2. Microsoft established its first Azure ExpressRoute location Hong Kong at Equinix HK1.

Orange announced the landing of Google’s transatlantic Dunant cable in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez on March 13, 2020, proceeding to the first and terrestrial stage of the laying of the Dunant cable. Dunant cable system is scheduled to come into service before the end of 2020.

According to a public Notice of Environmental Authorisation Process in South Africa, Google has selected Telkom SA as Landing Partner in South Africa, to land its private Equiano Cable System at the Melkbosstrand Cable Landing Station, about 35 km north of Cape Town.

JGA South consortium including RTI Connectivity Pte. Ltd. (RTI), AARNet Pty Ltd (AARNet) and Google announced on Friday March 27 that the construction of the Japan-Guam-Australia South Cable System (JGA South) has been successfully completed and is ready for service. The JGA South spans approximately 7,000 km between Piti, Guam and Sydney, Australia with a branch to the Sunshine Coast, with an initial design capacity of more than 36 Tbps. The Sunshine Coast branch is the first undersea fibre optic cable to land on the east coast of Australia outside of Sydney.

According to the Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa (TENET), the operating partner of the South African national research and education network, there was a break on WACS cable system at 23:28pm UTC on Friday March 27. The WACS break was occured between between Seixal, Portugal, and Highbridge, England.

RTI Connectivity Pte. Ltd. (RTI) has selected Equinix Equinix IBX data centers to terminate its Japan-Guam-Australia cables, Australia,Japan-Guam-Australia South Cable System (JGA South) connecting Sydney and Guam with termination into Equinix SY4 IBX in Sydney and with a branch to Australia’s Sunshine Coast, and Japan-Guam-Australia North Cable System (JGA North) connecting Tokyo and Guam with termination into Equinix TY2 IBX in Tokyo.

TransTeleCom (TTK) won a tender to provide two more 100 Gbps Eurasia links for China Unicom Global in Decmember 2019. Together, TTK has provided 5x100Gbps to China Unicom Global over the Eurasia terrestrial cables. Chinese carriers are pushing more traffic over the Eurasia terrestiral cable routes.

The two new 100G channels will run over the low latency ERMC route from China and Mongolia border to Moscow and Frankfurt am main respectively.

According to Ecofin Agency, the Congolese Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (ARPTC) has granted fiber Internet connectivity provider Liquid Telecom a license to build a subsea cable landing station in the country. The news was revealed last week by the public body on its Twitter page. Liquid Telecom's landing station is expected to connect DR Congo to Google's Equiano subsea cable.

Global Cloud Xchange and Sparkle today announced the extension of their partnership by adding new spectrum capacity over the Flag Atlantic (FA-1) transatlantic system connecting Paris and London to New York.

March 09, 2020 Eastern Daylight Time-Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. (“Zayo”) (NYSE: ZAYO), which provides mission-critical bandwidth to the world’s most impactful companies, today announced the completion of its acquisition by affiliates of Digital Colony Partners (“Digital Colony”) and the EQT Infrastructure IV fund (“EQT” or “EQT Infrastructure”). The close marks the consummation of the $14.3 billion transaction, which represents the largest syndicated private equity investment, the fifth largest Media & Communications LBO and the second largest LBO overall since 2008.

According to telecompaper news, Telefonica is planning to split its submarine cables business from the rest of its infrastructure subsidiary Telxius, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg and subsequently reported by El Economista. Telxius operates an 87,000 km international network of high capacity fiber optic subsea cables, including the latest MAREA and BRUSA cables.

According to Djibouti Telecom, the DARE1 cable landed in Mombasa, the great coast city of Kenya on Friday March 6^th, 2020. The DARE1 Kenya landing marks it’s final stop, following its landing in Djibouti and Somalia earlier. Telkom Kenya hosted a ceremony for the DARE1 Kenya landing.

Miami, Florida, March 1, 2020 – Florida International University (FIU), Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP), Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa and South African National Research Network (TENET/SANReN), and Angola Cables are pleased to announce the activation of lightpaths initially provisioned at 100Gbps linking North America, South America, and Africa for research and education.