The AC-1 (Atlantic Crossing 1) is a 14,000 km trans-Atlantic submarine cable system linking the USA and three European countries, the U.K., the Netherlands and Germany.

Global Crossing announced to build the AC-1 submarine cable project in 1997. And the AC-1 cable system was ready for service in 1999.

The AC-1 cable system comprises four fiber self-healing Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) ring network connecting the United States with the United Kingdom and Germany, with an initial design system capacity of 40Gbps (8*2.5G DWDM, 2 fiber pairs).

The AC-1 cable lands at the following cable landing stations:

• Brookhaven Cable Landing Station, the United States,
• Whitesands Bay Cable Landing Station, the United Kingdom
• Deutsche Telekom's Sylt Cable Landing Station, Germany
• KPN's Beverwijk Cable Landing Station, Netherlands

The AC-1 cable system was privately owned by Global Crossing. Following the acquisition of Global Crossing by Level3 in 2011 and the acquisition of Level3 by CenturyLink in 2017, the AC-1 is now wholly owned by CenturyLink, as well as AC-2/Yellow, Mid-Atlantic Crossing (MAC), Pan-America Crossing (PAC), South America Crossing (PAC), etc.  

The Yellow cable system (also known as Atlantic Crossing 2,  AC-2) is a 6,400 km trans-Atlantic submarine cable system linking the USA and the UK.

The AC-2 was put into service in September 2000, with an initial design capacity of 320 Gbps on 4 fiber pairs.

In May 1999, Level3 decided to lay the Yellow transatlantic cable system, with 4 fiber pairs.  At that time, demand was heavily outstripping supply. Other cables in place at the time included AC1, TAT 12/13. The construction and maintenance agreement for TAT14 had been signed, but the RFS date was not scheduled until late 2000. In 1999, long term indefeasible rights of use (IRU) for STM1/OC3 was priced at approximately $3 million and above. Coupled with this, the cost of ongoing operations and maintenance was in the region of $150,000 per year per STM1/OC3. The initial cost was relatively high for a single company, therefore the decision was taken to defray the large upfront project cost by entering into a strategic partnership. 

Level3 signed a coconstruction agreement with Global Crossing which took two out of the four fiber pairs on the Yellow cable system. Operating in this environment meant Level 3 already recouped half the cost for Yellow before construction even began. Global Crossing marketed their two fiber pairs of the Yellow cable system as Atlantic Crossing 2, or AC-2. Global Crossing's private Atlantic Crossing 1 (AC-1) cable system was ready for service in 1999.

Level3 owned two fiber pairs and signed an IRU agreement on a fiber pair with Viatel. In this way, Level3 recovered approximately 70% of capital costs on the Yellow cable system before the system even entered service.

The AC-2/Yellow cable lands at Level3's cable landing station at Bellport, Long Island, NY, and Global Crossing's cable landing station at Bude, the UK.

After the acquisition of Global Crossing by Level3 and the followed acquistion of Level3 by Century Link, AC-1 and AC-2/Yellow are now wholly owned by Century Link.

COLUMBUS III is a 9,900 km transatlantic submarine cable linking the US, Portugal, Spain and Italy. COLUMBUS III was ready for service in December 1999, with 2 fiber pairs and a design capacity of 20 Gbps.

The Columbus III consortium comprises:

• AT&T,
• Verizon,
• Telxius,
• Portugal Telecom,
• Tata Communications,
• Telecom Italia Sparkle,
• Telkom South Africa,
• Telecom Argentina,
• Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad,
• Embratel,
• Cyta,
• CANTV,
• Ukrtelecom

The Columbus III cable lands at:

• T1: Hollywood, FL, United States
• T2: Ponta Delgada, Azores Island, Portugal
• T3: Carcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
• T4: Conil, Spain
• T5: Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, Italy

The COLUMBUS-III cable system consists of five segments, S1, S2, S3, S4, and S5, with two optical fiber pairs per segment, initially designed to operate at 2.5 Gbps per wavelength per fiber pair in a trunk and branch structure configured as a collapsed ring. COLUMBUS-III was initially be configured with two wavelengths, designed to support up to eight wavelengths per fiber pair. The capacity of each fiber pair comprises thirty-two Basic System Modules (BSM), with each BSM containing 63 Minimum Investment Units (MIUs). Each fiber pair was equipped at the outset with a capacity of 1008 MIUs.

The COLUMBUS-III cable system also has four other terminal segments: Segment A, B, C and D, as shown in the figure below: 

In 2009, the Columbus III consortium selected Xtera to upgrade the system capacity to 160 Gbps, with Xtera’s advanced 20 Gbps Differential Phase Shift Key (DPSK) Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE).

The FA-1 (FLAG Atlantic 1) is a 14500 transatlantic submarine cable system linking the US, the UK and France. The FA-1 was ready for service in June 2001.

The FA-1 cable system is privately owned and operated by Global Cloud Xchange (formerly FLAG Telecom).

The FA-1 cable system consists of FA-1 North between the US and the UK, and FA-1 South between the US and France  with following landing stations:  

• Northport, New York, the US
• Island Park, New York, the US
• Skckewja, Cornwall, United Kingdom
• Plerin, Brittany, France

The FA-1 cable system has six fiber pairs on both FA-1 North and FA-1 South, with initial design capacity of 4.8 Tbps (2x2.4Tbps), based on 10Gbps DWDM technology.

The FA-1 cable system was supplied by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), for a total cost of about US$1.1 billion, inclusive of cost on the terrestrial network connecting cable landing stations in the US and Europe.

In 2013, the FA-1 cable system was upgraded with 100Gbps DWDM technology, using Ciena’s GeoMesh solution.

GTT Atlantic (formerly Hibernia Atlantic) is a 12,200 km private transatlantic submarine cable system in the North Atlantic Ocean, connecting Canada, the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Hibernia Atlantic Submarine Cable System was ready for service on April 8, 2001, with a design capacity of 10.16 Tbps.

In January 2017, GTT completed the acquisition of Hibernia Networks for $USD607 million (initial price was $590 million) , which includes Hibernia Express, Hibernia Atlantic and other assets.

Before the acquisition, Hibernia Networks owns and operates a global network serving more than 100 markets and spanning 25 countries. Hibernia Networks serves customers with unparalleled support, flexibility and service in a variety of industry segments including financial markets, web-centric, media and entertainment, and telecom service providers. Providing enterprise-class and wholesale global connectivity solutions, Hibernia Networks offers secure and diverse optical transport, Ethernet and carrier-grade IP transit services. Hibernia Networks also offers dedicated cloud connectivity, low latency services, DTM and HiberniaCDN for seamless anytime, anywhere content delivery. Hibernia Express, Hibernia Networks’ transatlantic cable, provides the lowest latency connections available between major commercial and financial centers in North America, Europe and beyond. The state-of-the-art cable system garnered two Global Carriers Awards in 2015 — Subsea Project of the Year and Best Subsea Innovation, as well as the Global Telecom Business Innovation Award for 2016.

GTT Express (formerly Hibernia Express) is a 4,600 km and 6-pair Trans-Atlantic submarine cable system linking Canada and the United Kingdom. Project Express is built with the state-of-the-art submarine network technology, specifically designed for the financial community stretching from North America to Europe. Hibernia Express offers the lowest latency route from New York to London with 58.55ms round trip delay.

Hibernia Express initially designed with 100 Gbps transmission capacity using TE SubCom’s C100 SLTE platform. It is a 6-fiber-pair submarine cable, with a portion of the fibers optimized for lowest latency and a portion optimized for 100x100 Gbps design capacity. The total cross-sectional design capacity of the Express cable is over 53 Tbps. Hibernia Express was ready for service on September 15, 2015.

Hibernia Express is privately-owned by Hibernia Atlantic, and form a part of Hibernia Atlantic's Global Financial Network which is specifically designed to meet the demanding performance and reliability requirements of the financial community.

In Jan. 2017, GTT completed the acquisition of Hibernia Networks which includes five subsea cables, including Hibernia Express, the lowest latency transatlantic cable system, and eight cable landing stations.

The TAT-14 is a 15,428 km transatlantic submarine cable system, connecting the United States to the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. The TAT-14 cable system was ready for service on March 21, 2001.

The TAT-14 consortium comprises 11 carriers, namely, AT&T, BT, C&W, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, KPN, MCII, PGE, Sprint, Swisscom and Telia.

The TAT-14 cable lands at:

• Manasquan, NJ, USA,
• Tuckerton, NJ, USA,
• Widemouth, the United Kingdom,
• St Valery-en-Caux, France,
• Katwijk,  the Netherlands,
• Norden, Germany, and
• Blaabjerg, Denmark

The TAT-14 cable system consists of four fiber pairs, each initially operating with 40 x 10 Gbps DWDM.

Designed with a partial SDH ring protection network structure, the TAT-14 cable system has a initial system capacity of 1.87Tbs calculated as: 
Southern route: 41 x 10Gbs channels + 640 Gbs SDH capacity 
Northern route: 18 x 10Gbs channels + 640 Gbs SDH capacity 
Total = 1.87 Tbs

Now, TAT-14 has a total design capacity of 9.38Tbps upon upgrade with new technology.

In September 1998, KDD Submarine Cable Systems Inc.(KDD-SCS) was awarded the Supply Contract f as the sole supplier for the TAT-14 Cable Network. The Contract Value was approximately US$1.2 billion (Approximately 170 billion yen). KDD-SCS' subcontractors for the TAT-14 cable project included Mitsubishi Electric Corp., TOSHIBA CORP., Ocean Cable Co., Ltd, etc. At that time, KDD-SCS won contracts for large-scale cable systems in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, including PC-1, JAPAN-US Cable Network, and TAT-14 Cable Network, with a total contract value of approximately 300 billion yen. As a result, KDD-SCS toasted to be the top of the world, superseding its antecessors, ALCATEL Submarine Networks (France) and TYCO Submarine Systems (U.S.A.), in terms of contract amount as well as technology.

In May 2011, Mitsubishi Electric signed a contract to upgrade the TAT-14 Cable Network with 40Gbps DWDM technology. 

TGN-Atlantic is a 13,000 km transatlantic submarine cable system linking the United States and the United Kingdom. TGN-Atlantic was ready for service in June 2001.

The TGN-Atlantic cable system is now privately owned and operated by Tata Communications.

The TGN-Atlantic cable system was originally invested and built by Tyco International, as part of its Tyco Global Network. In 2000, Tyco International announced to design, build, operate and maintain its own global undersea network, the Tyco Global Network (TGN), including TGN-Atlantic, TGN-Pacific, and TGN Europe-Asia, etc.

In 2005, Indian VSNL acquired Tyco Global Network (TGN) for $130 million.  In 2008, VSNL was rebranded as Tata Communications.

The TGN-Atlantic cable system consists of two separate cables routed slightly differently, but both cables landing at the same cable landing stations in the US and the UK:

• Wall Township, New Jersey, the United States
• Highbridge, Somerset, the United Kingdom

Each of the TGN-Atlantic cables has 4 fibre pairs, initially designed with 64x10Gbps DWDM technology, for a total system capacity of 5.12 Tbps.

The TGN-Atlantic cable system was upgraded to 40Gbps and 100G DWDM technology with Ciena's solutions, respectively in 2011 and 2013.

America Europe Connect (AEConnect, AEC-1), formerly called Emerald Express, is a private trans-Atlantic undersea cable system owned by Aqua Comms (formerly Emerald Networks), connecting Shirley, NY and Killala on the West Coast of Ireland, spanning more than 5,200 km with stubbed branching units for future landings, using CeltixConnect, an Irish Sea subsea cable wholly owned by AquaComms, to provide extended connectivity to London and greater Europe.

Featuring the latest technology of 130 Gbps x 100 Gbps per fibre pair in a total of 4 fiber pairs, AEC-1 provides low latency connectivity across the Atlantic, with 67.83ms between Equinix NY5 – Equinix LD6.

The AEC-1 cable lands at AT&T's Shirley Cable Landing Station, at 1 Coraci, Shirley, Long Island, New York. Aqua Comms houses the SLTEs of the AEC-1 cable system at 1025Connect, the premier network-neutral carrier hotel at Long Island.

AEConect has been ready for for service since Jan 2016.

Aqua Comms incorporates people and plans from the former Emerald Express/Emerald Networks project. Aqua Comms is the parent of Sea Fibre Networks, which built CeltixConnect.

In early 2018, Aqua Comms announced the investment in HAVFRUE cable system and branded as America Europe Connect-2 (AEC-2), the AEConnect is rebranded as America Europe Connect -1 (AEC-1).

MAREA is a new 6,600 km submarine cable system cross the Atlantic, connecting the United States to southern Europe: from Virginia Beach, Virginia to Bilbao, Spain and then beyond to network hubs in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. 

Marea means “tide” in Spanish.  Marea cable system is the first subsea cable connecting Virginia and Spain.

Facebook and Microsoft jointly designed MAREA as the first Open Cable System in the world. Telxius joined in later as the thrid party of MAREA consortium, operates and manages the MAREA cable system. TE SubCom is the turn key suppier for MAREA cable system.

MAREA lands at Telxius' Virginia Beach Cable Landing Station (CLS) at 1900 Corporate Landing Parkway in Virginia Beach, where hosts Telxius' BRUSA cable as well. In Spain, MAREA lands at Telxius' Bilbao Cable Landing Station. Telxius is the landing party in Spain, while Microsoft is the landing party in the US.

MAREA is initially designed with eight fiber pairs and 160Tbps of system capacity.  MAREA cable system has been in-service since April 2018.

After the ready for service, there have been trials on the MAREA cable system with 400G DWDM technology supplied by both Infinera and Acacia, which demonstrated the OPEN Cable design and the transmission capacity of 26.2Tbps per fiber pair and system capacity of 200Tbps.

According to FCC documents, Facebook owns two fiber pairs in MAREA, Microsoft owns two fiber pairs in MAREA, Telxius owns the remaining 4 FPs. And AWS has acquired from Telxius a fiber pair in MAREA cable system on IRU basis.

The HAVFRUE subsea cable is the first new undersea cable traversing the North Atlantic to connect mainland Northern Europe to the U.S. in nearly two decades, with a system capacity of 108Tbps and a trunk cable connecting New Jersey, USA to the Jutland Peninsula of Denmark with a branch landing in County Mayo, Ireland. Optional branch extensions to Northern and Southern Norway are also included in the design:

• Main Trunk: Wall, New Jersey (NJFX) and Blaabjerg, Denmark, six fiber pairs.
• Ireland Branch:  to Old Head Beach, Leckanvy, Ireland, six fiber pairs.
• Norway Branch: to Kristiansand, Norway, two fiber pairs.

Havfrue means “mermaid” in Danish. 

The HAVFRUE consortium including Aqua Comms, Bulk Infrastructure, Facebook and Google. TE SubCom has been selected as supplier for the system on which route survey operations have begun. 

Aqua Comms is the appointed system operator and landing party in the U.S., Ireland, and Denmark.  Aqua Comms will market and sell capacity services and raw spectrum on its portion of the HAVFRUE cable system under the brand name America Europe Connect-2 (AEC-2) as complementary to its existing transatlantic cable, America Europe Connect-1 (AEC-1).

The HAVFRUE/AEC-2 cable system was ready for service on December 1st, 2020.

EllaLink is a submarine cable connecting Brazil and Europe, linking the major hubs of Sao Paulo and Fortaleza with Lisbon and Madrid. The main section of the EllaLink cable traveling from Sines to Fortaleza is approximately 5900 km.

The EllaLink cable system delivers 72 Tbps of capacity over 4 fibre pairs, supplied by ASN, with €25 million ($27.2m) financial support by the European Commission as part of its Building Europe Link to Latin America (BELLA) initiative.

EllaLink was a partnership between Spanish submarine cable operator IslaLink and Brazilian state-owned telecoms provider Telebras. By the end of 2019, Telebras had withdrawn from the EllaLink cable project.

EllaLink collaborates with Telxius to land the cable at Telxius' Fortaleza Cable Landing Station. 

The EllaLink cable system is expected to be ready for service in early 2021.

The Dunant submarine cable system is a 6,600km submarine cable connecting Virginia Beach in the United States to the French Atlantic coast.

The Dunant cable system is the first ever in-service undersea cable featuring a 12 fiber-pair Space Division Multiplexing (SDM) design, with a total design capacity of 25 Tbps per fiber pair, to deliver record-breaking capacity of 300 Tbps across the Atlantic.

Named in honor of Henry Dunant, a Swiss businessman, social activist, first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and founder of the Red Cross, the Dunant cable system honors his memory and commitment to humanitarian ideals. 

The Dunant cable system is the second private submairne cable built by Google, following its first private and non-telecom submarine cable Curie, connecting Chile to Los Angeles.

In France, the Dunant cable lands at Orange's La Parée Préneau cable landing station in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez. Google France has contracted with Orange to be the landing party in France. A landing party agreement governs the relationship between Google France and Orange.  Google France conveys to Orange ownership of the portion of the Dunant cable system that extends 12 nautical miles from the shores of France. Orange grants Google France an IRU for the same portion of the Dunant cable system. Further, Orange receives an IRU for two fiber pairs for the entire length of the Dunant cable system. 

In the US, Google is the landing party and lands the Dunant cable at Telxius' Virginia Beach Cable Landing Station. Google maintains control of the Dunant cable system in U.S. territory and international waters.

Google selects TE SubCom to design and deploy the Dunant cable system.

The US FCC has granted cable landing license for the Dunant cable system as of March 13, 2020.

WASACE 1 is the next-generation fiber-optic technology between Europe to Latin America, connects Fortaleza, the Canary Islands and Seixal with additional branches in Cape Verde, Madeira and Casablanca. 

WASACE 1 submarine cable system will provide 8 fiber pairs for a total capacity of 144 Tbps, each pair with an upgradeable initial capacity of 18 Tbps.

The project is expected to be completed in no more than 30 months, being Q2 2021 the projected Ready for Service (RFS) date for system WASACE 1.

WASACE 1  is invested by Hemisphere Cable Company and supplied by NEC.

The Grace Hopper Cable System is a new private subsea cable system invested by Google, following its Curie, Dunant and Equiano.

The Grace Hopper cable connects the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain, with 6,250 km from New York to the Cornish seaside resort town of Bude in the U.K. and 6300 km from New York Bilbao in Spain. 

The Grace Hopper cable is one of the first new cables to connect the U.S. and the U.K. since 2003. and the first investment by Google in a private subsea cable route to the U.K. and the first-ever route to Spain. The Spanish landing point will more tightly integrate the upcoming Google Cloud region in Madrid.

The Grace Hopper cable consists of 16 fiber pairs (32 fibers), a significant upgrade to the internet infrastructure connecting the U.S. with Europe.

SumCom is the supplier and turn-key contractor for the Grace Hopper cable.

The Grace Hopper cable project is expected to be completed in 2022.

The cable is named for computer science pioneer Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (1906–1992), best known for her work on one of the first linkers (compilers), which was critical in the development of the COBOL programming language. She’s also credited with famously finding an actual “bug” in a program; her team tracked down the source of a short circuit on the early Harvard Mark II computer to a moth trapped in a panel. It is to honor Grace Hopper’s legacy of innovation by investing in the future of transatlantic communications with a state-of-the-art fiber optic cable.

For more about Google's investment in subsea cable, please visit the Complete List of Google's Subsea Cable Investments.

C2C

The Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN-2) is a 19,000-km submarine cable system linking Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore in a ring configuration, with four fiber-pairs connecting 10 submarine cable landing stations in Asia region, ready for service on December 20, 2001.

The APCN-2 is the first submarine cable system that has a self-healing function in the Asia region, and is capable of restoring itself instantly with its ring configuration when a failure occurs in a part of the system.

The APCN-2 has an initial design capacity of 2.56 Tbps by operating with 64x10 Gbps DWDM technology and four fiber-pairs ring.

The total initial investment of APCN-2 project is more than US$ 1 billion, including US$800 million supply contract awarded to NEC Corporation.

In 2010, the APCN-2 cable system was upgraded with 40Gbps DWDM technology. And it was further upgraded with 100Gbps DWDM technology in 2014. 

For further information, please refer to articles about APCN-2 Consortium and APCN-2 cable network.

The EAC-C2C Network is a merger of the EAC network and the C2C network, Asia’s largest privately-owned submarine cable network, with a design capacity of 17.92 Tbps to 30.72 Tbps, a total cable length of 36,800 km, and 17 cable landing stations covering Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Singapore. 

The East Asia Crossing (EAC) cable system spans 19,800 km, linking Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Singapore. The EAC network was initially constructed by Asia Global Crossing which was acquired by China Netcom in 2002. And then China Netcom sold out Asia Netcom (including the EAC network assets) to an investor group led by Ashmore and Spinnaker in 2006.

The City-to-City (C2C) cable system stretches 17,000, linking Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Singapore. The C2C network was initially constructed by SingTel in 2000-2002.

In 2007, Asia Netcom (now Pacnet) took over the control of C2C and merged the EAC and C2C networks into an integrated EAC-C2C Network.

In 2008, Pacnet Internet and Asia Netcom merged to form new Pacnet.

In April 2015, Telstra completed the acquisition of Pacnet. EAC-C2C network is now wholy owned by Telstra. 

For more description on EAC and C2C cable systems, please visit EAC cable system overview and C2C cable system overview.

The Flag North Asian Loop(FNAL) or Reach North Asian Loop (/RNAL) each represents a part of a 9,800 km Intra-Asia submarine cable system, the North Asian Loop submarine cable system linking Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong in a ring configuration.

The entire FNAL/RNAL submarine cable system consists of 6 fiber pairs, initially designed with 64x10 Gbps DWDM technology. Reliance Globalcom (FLAG Telecom) and PCCW Global (Reach) each owns three of the six fiber pairs respectively.

The North Asian Loop cable system was jointly built by FLAG Telecom and Level 3 Communication.

Level 3 Communications built its eastern leg connecting Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan and put it into service in July 2001. In the end of 2001, Reach acquired the North Asian Loop and other assets from Level 3 Communications. In March 2011, PCCW Global announced the completion of Reach's joint-venture alignment to take over most part of Reach's assets including the RNAL.

FLAG Telecom built the western leg connecting Hong Kong, Korea and Japan. And Reliance acquired FLAG Telecom in 2003.

In August 2011, Reliance Globalcom successfully upgraded it FNAL to 40G submarine network, to introduce 10G LAN PHY and OTN services in the FNAL submarine cable network. 

PCCW Global announced in January 2012 to upgrade the RNAL with 100G network solutions.

For more information about the FNAL/RNAL cable system, please click here

RNAL

TGN-Intra Asia Cable System (TGN-IA) is a private Intra-Asia submarine cable system constructed, owned and operated by Tata Communications. The TGN-IA cable spans 6800 km, consists of 4 fibre pairs linking Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Guam, with a design capacity of 3.84 Tbit/s. The TGN-IA cable route was deliberately designed to avoid areas prone to earthquakes and other hazardous areas, such as south and east coast of Taiwan Island. The TGN-IA cable system offers a low latency direct route between Tokyo and Singapore (63 ms). And the TGN-IA, the TIC and the TGN-Pacific together form an integrate submarine network to connect Asia and the United States.

Matrix Cable System (MCS) is a carrier neutral international fiber optic submarine cable that serves Singapore - Jakarta with high speed, high capacity and non-stop quality links. The MCS cable spans approximately 1055km from Singapore to Jakarta, with maximum design capacity of 2.56Tbps.  The MCS Offers PoP-to-PoP Connectivity between Singapore and Indonesia. The MCS was Ready for Provisional Acceptance (RFPA) on August 7, 2008.

TIC (Tata Indicom Cable), also known as TIISCS (Tata Indicom India-Singapore Cable System), is a submarine cable linking India and Singapore. The TIC cable spans 3,175 km, lands in  Chennai, India and Changi, Singapore. Construction of the cable TIC began in November 2003 and went on live on September 15, 2004. The TIC cable system comprises of 8 fiber pairs, operates with 64x10 Gbps DWDM technology, with a design capacity of 5.12 Tbps. The TIC cable system is 100% owned and operated by Tata Communications.

The MIC-1 (Moratelindo International Cable-system One) is a linear repeaterless optic fiber submarine cable system connecting Singapore and Batam Island, Indonesia. The MIC cable length is about 70km, lands at Changi Cable Landing Station and Batam Cable Landing Station.

The MIC1 cable system has been designed to have a minimum capacity of 10Gbits (STM-64) with the capability of accommodating Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM). The MIC cable system was ready for service in January 2008.

The MIC cable system is a private cable constructed, owned and operated by Moratel (PT Mora Telematika Indonesia), a wholesale telecom infrastructure providers established in 2000 in Indonesia.

The Korea-Japan Cable Network (KJCN) is a consortium cable with diverse direct connections between Korea and Japan.

The KJCN cable system consists of 12 fiber pairs on both cable routes, with a total cable length of 500km and an initial design capacity of 2.88 Tbps on each route.

There is no repeater and hence no PFE (Power Feeding Equipment) in the KJCN cable system.

The C&MA of the KJCN was signed on May 25, 2001, and the KJCN was ready for service on March 23, 2002, offering high quality, reliance broadband services for the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan.

In March 2001, SingTel and Bharti Group formed a 50:50 private submarine cable development company, Network i2i, for the construction of the i2i cable network (i2icn) which was the world's largest cable network in terms of bandwidth capacity (8.4 Tbps) then.  The i2i submarine cable consists of 8 fiber pairs connecting Tuas cable landing station in Singapore and Chennai cable landing station in India, spans 3100 km. The entire i2i cable network utilises the latest Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology, with 105 wavelengths of 10 Gbps when fully equipped.  The i2i cable network was completed in April 2002. In January 2007, the i2i cable network became 100% owned by Bharti Airtel.

The South-East Asia Japan Cable System (SJC) is a 8900 km (to be extended to 9700 km later) submarine cable system connecting 7 Asian countries and regions including Brunei, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand. The  SJC was ready for service on June 27, 2013.

The SJC cable consists of 6 fiber pairs, with an initial design capacity of 28 Tbps. The SJC cable system utilizes the state-of-the-art advanced 100G SLTE and OADM Branching technologies.  

The SJC cable system is supplied by NEC and TE SubCom, with a total cost of about US$400 million. 

For more details, please visit SJC cable system overview. 

The Asia-Pacific Gateway (APG) is a 10400km submarine cable system linking 8 countries and regions in Asia region, i.e., Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, Japan, and Korea.

The APG cable system consists of 6 fiber pairs in the trunk, initially designed with 128*40 Gbps DWDM technology and system capacity of 30.72Tbps, upgradable to 100 Gbps wavelength. APG consortium announced the system capcity as 54.8Tbps based on different calculation.

When it was initiated in May 2009, the APG consortium included PLDT(the Philippines), Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan), China Telecom and China Unicom (mainland China), KT Corp. (Korea), NTT Communications (Japan), Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia), and VNPT (Vietnam).

As NTT Com, PLDT, StarHub and Telekom Malaysia have signed the C&MA to form another consortium for the construction of the Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE), and another consortium including KDDI, SingTel, China Telecom, China Mobile, Globe Telecom, Google,etc has also signed the C&MA for the construction of the South-East Asia Japan Cable (SJC), the APG consortium has been in a difficulty to team up enough parties to invest in the APG cable system.

Though initiated earlier than the ASE  and the SJC, the APG has lagged far behind its competitors.

On December 20,2011, the APG consortium which includes Chunghwa Telecom, KT and NTT and other members signed in Beijing the APG C&MA. But the APG C&MA was not effective until early July 2012 when Facebook and Time dotCom were enrolled to form the final 12-member APG consortium, including China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, Facebook, KT Corp, LG Uplus, NTT Communications, StarHub, Time dotCom (Global Transit)  Viettel and VNPT.

APG consortium selected NEC as the system supplier. The total cost of APG cable system is approximately USD560 million (inclusive of landing cost).

The APG cable system has been ready for service as of Oct 28, 2016.

The Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE) is a 8148km intra-Asia submarine cable system constructed by a consortium including NTT, PLDT, StarHub and Telekom Malaysia.

The ASE cable consists of 6 fiber pair, connecting Japan to the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore,with branch to Hong Kong.  

The ASE cable system was initially designed with 40 Gbps transmission and OADM technologies, with a design capacity of 15Tbps,  upgradable to a maximum design capacity of 51Tbps using 100 Gbps technology.

Telekom Malaysia (TM) owns one-third stake and two dedicated fiber pairs in the ASE cable system, with which TM builds its wholly owned Cahaya Malaysia Cable system.

The ASE cable system was launched for service on August 20, 2012, supplied by Fujitsu and NEC, with a total cost of about USD430 million, in which Telekom Malaysia invested about USD140 million and PLDT invested about USD55 million.

The ASE cable system lands at the following cable landing stations:

• Shin-Maruyama, Japan
• Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong
• Daet, Philippines
• Mersing, Malaysia
• Changi, Singapore

The ASE cable system is carefully designed to avoid earthquake zone in South Taiwan, offer ultra low latency between Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore by terminating in the neighborhood of Stock Exchanges in Hong Kong and Singapore and landing directly at NTT’s Hong Kong Financial Data Center in Tseung Kwan O.

The typical latency (RTD) over ASE cable system is:

• Hong Kong Stock Exchange to @Tokyo data center: 42.3ms
• Singapore Stock Exchange to @Tokyo data center: 60.0ms
• Singapore Equinix SG1 to Seattle Westin data center: 150ms (over ASE+PC-1 north)
• Malaysia Mersing CLS to @Tokyo data center: 54 ms

Cahaya Malaysia is a two-fibre-pair cable system which is part of the 6-fibre-pair Asia Submarine-cable Express(ASE). While Cahaya Malaysia is owned by TM, the remaining 4 fibre pairs of the ASE are owned by NTT, StarHub and PLDT.

The Bharat Lanka Cable System is a 320-km submarine cable systems connecting  India and Sri Lanka. Initially it will have a capacity of 40 Gbit/s that will later be upgraded to 960 Gbit/s.

The Thailand - Indonesia - Singapore Cable Network (TIS) is a 1100-km regional submarine network linking Songkhla (Thailand), Batam (Indonesia) and Changi (Singapore). The TIS consortium includes CAT Telecom Public Company Ltd. of Thailand (CAT), PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk of Indonesia (Telin) and Singapore Telecommunications Limited of Singapore (SingTel) which jointly invested 36 million to build the TIS cable network.

The TIS was ready for service on December 2, 2003, with an lit capacity of 30 Gbps and upgradeable up to 320Gbit/s.

The Dumai Malaka Cable System (DMCS) is a 147-km repeaterless submarine telecommunications cable system connecting Dumai in Indonesia and Malaka in Malaysia. The DMCS was ready for service in 2005, with a design capacity of 320 Gbps and lit capacity of 20 Gbps. The Dumai Malaka Cable System is supplied by NEC .

The Batam-Dumai-Melaka (BDM) submarine cable is a 400-km intra-Asia regional submarine cable system between Malaysia and Indonesia with two routes, Melaka-Batam and Melaka-Dumai. The BDM consortium includes Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM),  PT XL Axiata Tbk and PT Mora Telematika of Indonesia. Huawei Marine Networks offers end-to-end turnkey submarine system solutions for the BDM project.

The BDM cable system has a capacity of 80 Gbps. And the BDM cable project is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2011.

The West Asia Crossing (WAC) is a intra-Asia submarine cable system planed by Pacnet. The WAC connects India through a landing station in Chennai, to both Malaysia and Singapore. The WAC is also designed to offer the flexibility of extending connectivity into Bangladesh and Sri Lanka through separate branching units, as well as the possibility of a second cable landing point in Mumbai to offer additional capacity to cables landing off the west coast of India.

The WAC will have a design capacity of 6 to 8 Tbps, with a ready-for-service (RFS) date targeted around early 2012.

The WAC project has not been implemented.

The Taiwan Strait Express-1 (TSE-1, also known as Tanshui-Fuzhou Submarine Cable) is the first submarine cable across the Taiwan Strait, linking Tanshui, Taiwan island and Fuzhou, mainland China. The TSE-1 submarine cable is about 270 Km, consists of 8 optical fiber pairs. The design capacity of the TSE-1 submarine cable system is 6.4 Tbps.

The TSE-1 consortium consists of China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile from mainland China, and Chuanghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile, Far Eastone,and TIGC from Taiwan.

The TSE-1 cable project was completed on January 18, 2013.

Though the TSE-1 is widely toasted as the first submarine cable linking Taiwan island and mainland China, the first submarine optical fibre cable linking Taiwan and mainland China is the Kinmen-Xiamen submarine cable system which was ready for service on August 21, 2012, linking Kinmen island, Taiwan and Xiamen, mainland China.

The India Cloud Xchange (ICX) subsea cable system is a private cable to be constructed by Global Cloud Xchange (former Reliance GlobalCom), delivering a direct Mumbai-Singapore route to bypass current outage prone terrestrial routes between Mumbai and Chennai. The ICX subsea cable runs approximately 5,060 kilometers between Mumbai and Singapore.

Based on state-of-the-art 100G technology, the ICX cable is a four fiber pair system with initial design capacity per fiber pair at 80 x 100G.

The ICX cable system is expected to be ready for service in Q2 2016.

The ICX project has not been implemented.

The Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) is a new cable system that meets the continued bandwidth growth between the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent and South East Asia.

The BBG cable lands in UAE, Oman, India, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia, with a diverse terrestrial network from Malaysia to the Singapore points-of-presence at Equinix and Global Switch.

Connection of traffic to BBG is achieved by using either the 10 Gbit/s or 100 Gbit/s interface. BBG is a three fibre pair cable that extends over 8 000 km, based on 100G DWDM coherent technology with an overall design capacity of 10 Tbit/s per fibre pair.

BBG goes live on April 8, 2016.

SEA Cable Exchange-1 (SeaX-1) comprises a 250km high-speed, large capacity, 24-fibre pair undersea fiber optic cable that connects Mersing (Malaysia), Changi (Singapore), and Batam (Indonesia). 

The SeaX-1 cable system is fully owned and operated by Super Sea Cable Networks Pte. Ltd..

The SeaX-1 cable system was ready for service in June 2018.

The Southeast Asia–Japan 2 (SJC2) submarine cable system spans 10500km, connecting 11 cable landing stations in Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, Korea and Japan. 

The SJC2 cable features eight fibre pairs, at least 18Tbps of capacity per fiber pair, with initial design capacity of 144 Tbps.

SJC2 consortium comprises of China Mobile International (CMI), Chuan Wei, Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), Donghwa Telecom (DHT), Facebook, KDDI, Singtel, SK Broadband (SKB), Telin, TICC (True) and VNPT.

SJC2 consortium selected NEC as the turn-key supplier.

The intial cost of SJC2 cable system is about US$440million. While its earlier generation SJC cable system costed about USD400 million for an intial design capacity of 28Tbps and cable length of 8900km. 

It is reported that TRUE will spend around Bt3.6 billion (approximately USD110 million) on SJC2 cable sytem and acquire 9Tbps (1/16 of the system capacity). 

TKO Express is the first submarine cable to directly link Chai Wan and Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate (TKOIE) in Hong Kong. With 1,728 fiber cores, spanning just 3.5 km across Tathong Channel, TKO Express provides a direct, low-latency path to link data centers in Chaiwan and the emerging data centre hub at Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate (TKOIE).

TKO Express is 18.2 km shorter than the alternate route from Sino Favor Centre to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX). The short, direct path delivers the low-latency financial organisations demand for real-time transactions.

TKO Express is built, owned and operated by Superloop.

TKO Express was ready for service in june 28, 2017.

The Ultra Express Link (UEL) is a 3km high-capacity, low latency subsea cable system connecting the Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate (TKOIE) with the Chai Wan area in Hong Kong.

The UEL cable system provides additional diversity in connectivity for the multiple data centers in TKOIE, and serves to position the TKOIE as Asia’s data center hub.

THe UEL is built, owned and operated by HKT which is majority-owned by PCCW Limited. PCCW Global is the international operating division of HKT.

Chennai-the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (A&N Islands) submarine cable system includes a segment with repeaters from Chennai to Port Blair and seven segments without repeaters between the islands of Havelock, Little Andaman (Hutbay), Car Nicobar, Kamorta, the Great Nicobar Islands, Long Island and Rangat. The total cable length will be approximately 2,300km and carry 100Gb/s optical waves.

The Chennai-A&N Island submarine cable system is invested by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL),and supplied by NEC. BSNL is a state-owned telecom operator in India. It's reported that the government of India spent $175 million on the 2300km Chennai-A&N Island submarine cable system.

On August 10, 2020, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Chennai-A&N Island submarine cable between Chennai and Port Blair via video conferencing. The Chennai-A&N Island submarine cable system will deliver bandwidth of 2 x 200 Gbps between Chennai and Port Blair, and 2 x 100 Gbps between Port Blair and the other islands of Andaman and Nicobar Islands chain.

The Pak-China Optic Fiber Cable (Pak-China OFC) covers a distance of 822 kilometers and runs from Rawalpindi till Khunjerab pass to connect with China.

The Pak-China OFC is operated and maintained by Special Communication Organization, deployed by Huawei Technologies at a total cost of $44 million.

Malaysia-Cambodia-Thailand (MCT) cable system connects Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand, spans approximately 1,300 kilometers, adopts 100 Gbps technology with a system capacity of 30+ Tbps.

The MCT cable system lands at Sihanoukville in Cambodia, Rayong in Thailand and Cherating (near Kuantan, Penang) in Malaysia respectively.

The MCT cable system is jointly built by Telcotech, a subsidiary of EZECOM in Cambodia, Symphony Communication of Thailand and  Telekom Malaysia.

The MCT cable system launched for service in March 2017, with an initial capacity of 1.5Tbps.

In Cambodia, the MCT cable system connects to AAG and other submarine cable system. Telcotech is the only Cambodian member of the AAG which links Southeast Asia to the USA.

As the landing party for MCT cable system in Thailand, Symphony is the first private submarine cable operator in Thailand, owns and operates the Maolee Cable Landing Station in Rayong, Thailand.

Royal Bengal Tiger-2 (RBT-2) a new submarine cable connecting Bangladesh to Singapore, with 8 fiber pairs.

The RBT-2 is initiated and invested by SBSCL, SPARKbANGLA Submarine Cables Ltd, and is expected to be ready for service in March 2023.

The Myanmar/Malaysia India Singapore Transit (MIST) cable system has a total length of 8,100km, connecting Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, India (Mumbai and Chennai). 

The MIST cable system consists of 12 fiber pairs, with more than 216Tbps system capacity. The total intial cost of the MIST cable system is approximately US$400million. 

The MIST cable system is invested by Orient Link Pte. Ltd. (OLL), a strategic joint venture of NTT Ltd., Fund Corporation for the Overseas Development of Japan’s ICT and Postal Services Inc. (JICT) , WEN Capital Pte. Ltd., incorporated for international submarine cables in Singapore on October 10, 2019.

NEC Corporation (NEC) wins the agreement to build the MIST Cable System (MIST).

Hainan – Hong Kong Submarine Cable System (HHSCS) is a new build project in China connecting Hong Kong SAR and Hainan Province with branch to Guangdong Province.

The HHSCS cable deploys the latest 16 fiber-pair SDM repeater, improving the system capacity and optimizing its performance. 

The HHSCS cable system is invested and owned by China Mobile, supplied by Huawei Marine.

The SIGMAR cable system is a 2,227km connecting Singapore and Myanmar, landing in Tuas in Singapore and in Thanlyin, southeast of Yangon in Myanmar.

The SIGMAR cable consists of four fiber pairs, running through the Andaman Sea and along the Straits of Malacca

The SIGMAR cable system connects Myanmar directly to Singapore, with branching units to enable optional landing in Thailand and future interconnections with other cables.

The SIGMAR cable system  is invested Campana Group, partnering with Telin Singapore which will offer access to the landing site at Tuas as well as local connectivity in Singapore.

SIGMAR is scheduled to be ready for service in 2020.

The Maldives Sri Lanka Cable system (MSC) is a four fiber pairs subsea cable system connecting the Maldives and Sri Lanka, landing in Hulhumalé and Mount Lavinia.

The MSC consortium includes Ooredoo Maldives PLC (Ooredoo Maldives), Dhivehi Raajjeyge Gulhun PLC (Dhiraagu) and Dialog Axiata PLC (Dialog).

The MSC is supplied by Huawei Marine Networks, equipped with high-output titanium housing repeaters to achieve span length over 130km.

The MSC cable system is scheduled to be ready for service by year-end 2020 with the delivery period less than 11 months.

The Orient Express submarine cable is a 1,300km cable system directly connect the UAE and Pakistan, landing points in Karachi and Gwadar in Pakistan, and Kalba in the UAE. 

The Orient Express cable system is developped by Du Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (Du) and Islamabad-based internet service provider Wi-Tribe LDI Pakistan.

As the partnering telecom operator for the project along with Wi-Tribe Pakistan LDI, Du is UAE’s landing party for the Orient Express cable system and provides cable landing station and infrastructure for the connectivity of the Orient Express cable system.

Wi-Tribe LDI Pakistan, owned by HB International Investments Limited, is the owner of the project in Pakistan and possesses requisite licenses as per the regulations of the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority. In February 2019, Wi-Tribe Pakistan LDI (Pvt.) Limited rebranded as Orient Express LDI (Pvt.) Limited. 

Emergent Telecommunications LLC, owned by HB International Investments, is the project management company for the Orient Express cable system.

HB International Investments, owned by a Pakistani expat in the UK, brings Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of USD 100 Million to build the  Orient Express cable system.

Arc, a joint venture between UAE’s du and Bahrain’s Batelco, is selected by Emergent Telecommunications as the lead consultant for the Orient Express submarine cable system, to provide consultancy services related to network configuration, tendering, supply contract negotiation and documentation, and overall project management for the Orient Express cable.

The Orient Express cable system consists of four fiber pairs and 40 Tbps of total design capacity, enabling faster connectivity via internet with the rest of the world.

The Asia Direct Cable (ADC) is a 9400 km submarine cable connecting China (Hong Kong SAR and Guangdong Province), Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The ADC cable system will feature eight fiber pairs and is designed to carry more than 140 Tbps of traffic, enabling high capacity transmission of data across the East and Southeast Asian regions.

The ADC consortium comprises CAT, China Telecom, China Unicom, PLDT Inc., Singtel, SoftBank Corp., Tata Communications and Viettel.

The ADC consortium has awarded the supply contract to NEC. ADC is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2022.

The Singapore India Gateway (“SING”) submarine cable system is an ultra-high capacity connectivity between Singapore and India, with two landings in India at Mumbai and Chennai. The SING cable system will also have branches for connectivity to Indonesia, Thailand, and Oman.

Oman provides the perfect location for onward interconnectivity with many other existing and future systems being developed that connect at Oman, from Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The SING cable system will enable a direct connect between this new Oman hub and the Singapore hub: datacenter to datacenter.

The Singapore India Gateway (SING) cable system has a target Ready for Service (RFS) date in Q2 2023 and by the time SING achieves RFS, over half of all the existing cable systems connecting India will be over 20 years old with two thirds of all cable landings controlled by just two incumbent operators.

The SING cable system will be an inaugural project initiated by Datawave Networks, headquartered in Cyprus, with offices in the India, Singapore, UK and the USA and operates with a growing team. 

The TW1 cable system spans 1,300 km connecting Pakistan, United Arab Emirates and Oman.

The TW1 cable system is privately owned and oeprated by Transworld Associates Private Limited (Transworld, or TWA), which is also the landing party in Pakistan for the SMW5 cable system.

Transworld is a joint venture of Orascom Investment Holding (now Global Telecom Holding S.A.E., based in Amsterdam, Netherlands), Orastar Limited and His Excellency Dr Omar Abdul Mone’m Yousuf Al Zawawi of Sultanate of Oman. 

The TW1 cable lands at:

• Karachi, Pakistan,
• Al Seeb, Oman, and
• Fujairah, UAE.

Transworld contracted with Omantel in July 2005 for a 15-year agreement that grants  Transworld the right to use Omatel’s Al Seeb Cable Landing Station as a land point for linking the present and future international cables in Oman.

Transworld signed a landing party agreement with the Emirates Telecommunication Corporation (Etisalat) to land TW1 cable system at Fujairah Cable Landing Station.

The TW1 cable system comprises of two fibre pairs, with an initial design capacity of 1.28Tbps. There are 14 repeaters on the trunk of 1237km between Fujairah and Karachi, with a 60km branch to Al Seeb.

The TW1 cable system was supplied by TE SubCom and began operations in 2006.

In 2011, the TW1 cable system was upgraded with SubCom's solution to add six additional wavelengths, using plug and play technology.

In 2016, the TW1 cable system was upgraded with Huawei Marine's solution to add 3x100Gbps wavelengths in its original 10Gbps DWDM system.

TGN-Gulf is a 4031km submarine cable connnecting Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. TGN-Gulf connects to a branch unit of TGN-EA near Oman, forming connections onwards to Mumbai, India and Europe.

TGN-Gulf is a consortium cable led by Tata Communications. Bahrain Internet Exchange in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Nawras (now Ooredoo Oman) of Oman, Qatar Telecom (now Ooredoo) of Qatar, Mobily of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates are exclusive landing parties for the TGN Gulf cable system in corresponding countries. 

By landing the TGN-Gulf cable system in Oman, Nawras (now Ooredoo Oman) became the second operator to operate international submarine cable in Oman.

The TGN-Gulf cable system lands at:

• Qalhat, Oman
• Fujairah, United Arab Emirates
• Dubai, United Arab Emirates
• Al-Kheesa, Qatar
• Amwaj Island, Bahrain
• Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia

The TGN-Gulf cable system was supplied by TE SubCom, ready for service on 22 march 2012.

Pishgaman Oman Iran (POI) Network is a 400km submarine cable connecting Iran and Oman.

The POI cable system is privately owned by Pishgaman Kavir Asia (PKA), partnered with Omantel as the landing party in Oman. 

Pishgaman Kavir Asia (PKA) as s subsidiary of Pishgaman Cooperative Group, is the leading provider of telecommunication service in Iran. POI is the only iranian submarine cable developed by private sector, planned to connect Iran and other Middle East states to different pats of the world, through Oman and international gateways.

The POI cable system lands at:

• Barka, Oman
• Chabahar, Iran
• Jask, Iran

The POI cable system was ready for service in June 2012.

The OMRAN cable system is a 600km submarine cable connecting Oman and Iran, in conjunction with the Europe-Persia Express Gateway (EPEG) cable system.

The OMRAN cable system lands at:

• Barka, Oman
• Diba, Oman
• Khasab, Oman
• Jask, Iran
• Chabahar, Iran

The segment between Barka (Oman) and Jask (Iran) is part of the EPEG cable system. 

The OMRAN cable system was ready for service in Q1 2013.

The Fiber Optic Gulf (FOG) is a 1300km submarine cable system connecting Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and United Arab Emirates (UAE), ready for service in June 1998.

The FOG consortium comprises Kuwait Ministry of Communications, Batelco, Ooredoo and Etisalat.

The FOG cable system lands at:

• Kuwait City, Kuwait
• Manama, Bahrain
• Doha, Qatar
• Dubai, United Arab Emirates

The NO-UK Cable System is an open cable system providing a total of eight dark fibre pairs and up to 216 Tbps system capacity, connecting Stavanger in Norway and Newcastle in England. 

The NO-UK cable is building by NO-UK Com, the consortium comprising Altibox Carrier as the operator, Haugaland Kraft, BKK, Ryfylke IKS, Green Mountain, Polysys and Hatteland Group.

Through Altibox Carrier, the consortium can offer dark fibre or capacity backhaul routes to any major PoP in the Nordics or UK. 

The NO-UK will be a part of a larger European fibre network established by Altibox Carrier, Euroconnect-1, that will ensure robust and state-of-the-art digital infrastructure, connecting Norway to important digital hubs such as London, Brussels, Amsterdam and Hamburg. 

The NO-UK cable system is supplied by Xtera. The supply contract has come into force, and the NO-UK cable system will be ready for service by the end of Q4 2021.

The Skagen Fiber West is a 170km submarine cable connecting Norway (Larvik) and Denmark (Hirtshals). 

The Skagen Fiber cable system consists of 48 fiber pairs, provides over 1920 Tbps of system capacity and a designed round-trip delay (RTD) of approximately 1.7 ms between the Larvik cable landing stations in Norway and Hirtshals cable landing station in Denmark.

The Skagen Fiber cable system is building and owned by Lyse/Altibox (100%), to be ready by the end of Q3 2020.

In December 2019, Altibox acquired 100% of shares in Skagenfiber AS and the Skagen Fiber cable system between Norway and Denmark. Combined the Skagen Fiber cable system and the NO-UK cable system, Altibox Carrier is establishing a large fiber network across Europe, EUROCONNECT-1.

The COBRA Fiber Optic Cable is a 325km dark fiber G.654.D low loss cable between Eemshaven in the Netherlands and Endrup (Esbjerg) in Denmark via the German sector of the North Sea.

The COBRA Fiber Optic Cable can be connected to a subsea cable to the UK in Esbjerg, and a subsea cable to Norway in Bulbjerg.

The COBRA Fiber Optic Cable has been laid alongside the COBRAcable HVDC submarine electricity interconnector.

The COBRA Fiber Optic Cable has primarily been installed to control the HVDC electricity interconnector,  the remaining capacity is used for commercial purposes.

Both the COBRA Fiber Optic Cable and the COBRAcable HVDC submarine cable electricity interconnector are owned by TenneT TSO and Energinet. The Dutch company Relined Fiber Network is responsible for leasing the dark fiber capacity on the COBRA Fiber Optic Cable.

The COBRA cable forms a completely redundant and low latency route to Denmark. Running over the COBRA cable, the latency from Copenhagen to Amsterdam is less than 9ms (leading latency has been 11.5 ms), and latency from Copenhagen to London is 13.8 ms (leading latency has been 16.7 ms).

About the COBRAcable

The COBRAcable has been designed to facilitate the direct transport of wind energy generated at offshore wind farms, facilitating the transport of renewable energy and enhancing the security of supply.

COBRAcable is a 325km HVDC submarine cable electricity interconnector between Eemshaven in the Netherlands and Endrup in Denmark via the German sector of the North Sea.The COBRAcable submarine cable directly interconnects the high-voltage grids of the Netherland and Denmark. The COBRAcable has a capacity of 700 MW and has been commissioned since 2019.

The Celtic Norse Cable system is the first submarine fiber optic cable between Norway and Ireland, with further connectivity to the United States, enabling Norway to position itself as a prime entrant into the hyperscale and enterprise data center market.

The Celtic Norse cable route is approx. 2000km, lands at 

• Oysanden, in Melhus municipality in Norway, just south of the city of Trondheim, onwards terrestrial connections going south to Oslo-and mainland Europe, as well as spur cables linking Northern Norway, and
• Killala Bay, County Mayo in Ireland, where the trans-Atlantic AEC-1 cable lands.

The Celtic Norse Consortium comprises Celtic Norse AS, Vodafone Iceland and Aqua Comms.

Aqua Comms is the operations partner for Celtic Norse Cable system, as the landing party in Ireland and providing system NOC services to the consortium.

The Celtic Norse cable system is planned to be ready for service (RFS) in 2021.

NSC (North Sea Connect) is the first new-technology cable to connect Newcastle in the UK and Denmark, providing diversity between the UK and Northern Europe avoiding London.

The NSC cable system connects AEC System directly into Europe using the existing CeltixConnect-1 Irish Sea crossing as well as the CeltixConnect-2 northern Irish Sea crossing

There is a Branching Unit to facilitate future connections to Germany or the Netherlands.

The North Sea Connect cable system is owned and operated by Aqua Comms.

The CeltixConnect-2 (CC-2) is submarine cable connecting Dublin and Blackpool via the Irish Sea.

The CeltixConnect-2 (CC-2) connects with the existing CeltixConnect-1 and the North Wales Connect to form a fully diverse and reliable circuit between Dublin and Blackpool, with connectivity to New York and London through the AEConnect network, and a Branching Unit to facilitate connection to the Isle of Man.

The CeltixConnect-2 (CC-2) is a part of Aqua Comms' North Atlantic Loop network. CeltixConnect-2 (CC-2) and CeltixConnect-1 (CC-1) form a fully diverse ring between Dublin and Blackpool.

CeltixConnect-1 (CC-1) is a 131km long submarine cable system with 72 fibre pairs between Ireland and the U.K. 

CeltixConnect-1 (CC-1) provides the shortest, most secure crossing of the Irish Sea from Dublin to Anglesey in the north-west coast of Wales.

CeltixConnect-1 (CC-1) was ready for service in 2012 and is a part of Aqua Comms'North Atlantic Loop network.

CeltixConnect-1 (CC-1) and CeltixConnect-2 (CC-2) form a fully diverse ring between Dublin and Blackpool.

C-Lion1 submarine cable, also known as Sea Lion,  is a 4-fiber-pair and 1175km submarine cable from Helsinki in Finland to Rostock in Germany under the Baltic Sea, being the first direct submarine cable link between the Nordic region and continental Europe.

C-Lion1 (Sea Lion) provides a direct, low latency and cyber secure Internet backbone connection between Finland and Germany, Before the completion of C-Lion1, all data transmission to Finland has taken place via Denmark and Sweden.

Cinia Group leads the Sea Lion initiative as the developer and builder of the submarine cable, and later as an open access network operator. The Finnish Government is an enabler and investor of the initiative together with institutional investors OP-Pohjola and Ilmarinen. Investments with equity and debt financing will total at approximately 100 million Euros. The sea cable initiative is designed to meet the commercial terms and moderate profitability as long term infrastructure investment, bringing also significant direct and indirect economic benefits such as decisions by international data center operators and data intensive organizations to locate their operations in Finland.

The Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications finalized the feasibility study on the C-Lion1 (Sea Lion) undersea cable project in June 2012. In August 2015, the Finnish government approved the construction of the C-Lion1 cable system. And Sea Lion cable project was completed in early 2016.

The C-Lion1 cable project is  supplied by ASN, with a total cost of approximately Euro 100 million.

FLAG Europe Asia (now FEA), originally called Fibre-optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG), is a 28,000km submarine cable connecting 18 countries and regions in Asia, Africa and Europe. FLAG EA (FEA) was opened for commercial service on 22 November 1997.

FLAG Europe Asia (FEA) was originally a private cable owned by FLAG Telecom. FLAG Europe Asia, FLAG North Asia Loop/REACH North Asia Loop (FNAL/RNAL), FALCON and FLAG Atlantic 1 (FA-1)formed FLAG Global Network. In 2003, Reliance Communications, now branded as Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), acquired FLAG Telecom for $207million. 

FLAG Europe Asia (FEA) lands at the following cable landing stations:

• Porthcurno / Skewjack, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom
• Estepona, Málaga, Andalusia, Spain
• Palermo, Province of Palermo, Sicily, Italy
• Alexandria, Al Iskandariyah Governorate, Egypt
• Cairo, Egypt
• Suez, As Suways Governorate, Egypt
• Aqaba, Aqaba Governorate, Jordan
• Jeddah, Makkah Province, Saudi Arabia
• Fujairah, United Arab Emirates
• Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
• Penang, Malaysia, meeting SAFE and SEA-ME-WE 3
• Satun, Satun Province, Thailand
• Songkhla, Songkhla province, Thailand
• Silvermine Bay, Lantau Island, Hong Kong
• Nanhui, Shanghai, China
• Keoje, South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea
• Ninomiya, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
• Miura, Kanagawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

The South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4, SMW4) is an approximately 18,800 km submarine cable connecting Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and France.

The SMW4 cable system consists of two fiber pairs, with intial design capacity of 1.28Tbps, upgraded to 4.6Tbps in 2015.

The SMW4 cable system was ready for service on December 13, 2005.

The SMW4 project costs about US$500 million, supplier by ASN and Fujitsu jointly.

The SMW4 Consortium comprises 16 telecom operators:

• Algérie Télécom, Algeria
• Bharti Infotel Limited, India
• Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), Bangladesh
• CAT Telecom Public Company Limited, Thailand
• Emirates Telecommunication Corporation (ETISALAT), UAE
• France Telecom, France
• MCI, United States
• Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited, Pakistan
• Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel), Singapore
• Sri Lanka Telecom PLC (SLT), Sri Lanka
• Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Saudi Arabia
• Telecom Egypt (TE), Egypt
• Telecom Italia Sparkle S.p.A., Italy
• Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM), Malaysia
• Tunisie Telecom, Tunisia
• Tata Communications, India

The SMW4 cable system has 4 segments:

• S1 - Tuas to Mumbai
• S2 - Mumbai to Suez
• S3 - Suez to Alexandria
• S4 - Alexandria to Marseille

Tthe SMW4 cable system lands at the following 17 cable landing stations:

1. Marseille, France
2. Annaba, Algeria
3. Bizerte, Tunisia
4. Palermo, Italy
5. Alexandria, Egypt
6. Cairo, Egypt (overland)
7. Suez, Egypt (overland
8. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
9. Fujairah, United Arab Emirates
10. Karachi, Pakistan
11. Mumbai, India
12. Colombo, Sri Lanka
13. Chennai, India
14. Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh
15. Satun, Thailand
16. Melaka, Malaysia
17. Tuas, Singapore

SEACOM is a 17,000 km (11,000 mi) submarine cable connecting South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Djibouti, France and India. The SEACOM cable system was ready for service on 23 July 2009, supplied by SubCom. 

SEACOM Cable System was upgraded to 1.5Tbps capacity in 2018.

Cable Landing Stations:

• Mtunzini, South Africa, in a partnership with Neotel as landing party in South Africa and extending to Neotel data centre in Midrand, Johannesburg
• Mombasa, Kenya
• Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
• Maputo, Mozambique
• YAC A CLS, Djibouti
• Zafaranan, Egypt
• Abu Talat, Egypt
• Marseille, France
• Mumbai, India

The SEACOM cable system is variously described as a $600 million investment. The initial private investment in the SEACOM project was US$375 million: $75 million from the developers, $150 million from private South African investors, and $75 million as a commercial loan from Nedbank (South Africa). The remaining $75 million was provided by Industrial Promotion Services (IPS), which is the industrial and infrastructure arm of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development. The IPS investment was funded by $15 million in equity, and a total of $60.4 million in debt from the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund and the FMO.

Current ownership structure of SEACOM is as follows: 30% IPS, 30% Remgro, 15% Sanlam, 15% Convergence Partners, and 10% Brian Herlihy.

SEACOM and TGN-EA are a common cable in some segments. SEACOM represents the East African portion of the system as well as two fiber pairs between Egypt and India. Tata Communications TGN-EA  has two fiber pairs from Egypt to India and the branch to Jeddah. Both SEACOM and Tata Communications TGN EA have one fiber pair on TE North for connectivity across Egypt to Europe.

South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3 (Sea-Me-We3 or SMW3) is a submarine cable linking 39 cable landing stations in 33 countries and 4 continents, including Asia, Astralia, Africa and Europe. Sea-Me-We 3 (SMW3) is the longest submarine cable system in the world with a total length of 39,000 km.

Sea-Me-We 3 (SMW3) cable system was supplied by ASN and Fujitsu and officially put into service on September 30, 1999.

The SMW3 Consortium comprises 92 telecom operators.

Sea-Me-We 3 (SMW3) cable system consists of two fiber pairs in its trunk, designed with 8*STM-16 DWDM technology which was the then state-of-the-air technology when it was designed in 1996.

In 2006, 2nd 10G Upgrade was completed which increased Sea-Me-We-3 system capacity significantly.

In May 2007, Sea-Me-We-3 completed the 3rd 10G Upgrade with 48 wavelengths per fiber pair.

In December 2009, the 4th 10G Upgrade increased WDM channels from 48 to 64 per fibre pair.

In 2015, the 5th Upgrade realized capacity expansion with 100G DWDM technologies.

Sea-Me-We3 (SMW3) lands at the following 39 cable landing stations in 33 countries:

1. Norden, Germany
2. Oostende, Belgium
3. Goonhilly, United Kingdom
4. Penmarch, France
5. Sesimbra, Portugal
6. Tetuan, Morocco
7. Mazara del Vallo, Italy
8. Chania, Greece
9. Marmaris, Turkey
10. Yeroskipou, Cyprus
11. Alexandria, Egypt
12. Suez, Egypt
13. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
14. Djibouti, Djibouti
15. Muscat, Oman
16. Fujairah, United Arab Emirates
17. Karachi, Pakistan
18. Mumbai, India
19. Kochi, India
20. Mount Lavinia, Sri Lanka
21. Pyapon, Myanmar
22. Satun, Thailand
23. Penang, Malaysia
24. Medan, Indonesia
25. Tuas, Singapore
26. Jakarta, Indonesia
27. Perth, Australia
28. Mersing, Malaysia
29. Tungku, Brunei
30. Da Nang, Vietnam
31. Batangas, Philippines
32. Taipa, Macau
33. Deep Water Bay, Hong Kong, China
34. Shantou, China
35. Fangshan, Taiwan
36. Toucheng, Taiwan
37. Shanghai, China
38. Geoje, South Korea
39. Okinawa, Japan

For the capacity pricing, Sea-Me-We 3 introduced an innovative Price Incentive Scheme based on the MIU*km concept. For each MIU (i.e. a 2 Mbit/s circuit) between two landing points, the price is equal to the geographical distance between these two points (subject to a minimum of 550 km and to a maximum of 10,000 km) multiplied by the unit cost for a MIU*km. For IRU purchase, the price will be at a Fixed Price of USD50 per miu*km for circuit within any segment in Sea-Me-We 3.

Eastern Africa Submarine System (EASSy) is a 10,000km submarine cable system along the east coast of Africa, with 9 landing stations in Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa, provides a backhaul system for at least 12 landlocked countries, enabling wide coverage in the East African region. 

The EASSy cable system was ready for service in July 2010.

The EASSy cable system comprises two fiber pairs, initially designed with 68*10Gbps DWDM technology. The design capacity was upgraded to 4.72 Tbps in 2011 with ASN's 40Gbps wavelength technology.

The EASSy project costs an initial investment at approximately US$ 235 million. 

The EASSy Consortium consists of 18 members, including Bharti Airtel, Botswana Fibre Networks, BT, Comores Telecom, Djibouti Telecom, Etisalat, Mauritius Telecom, MTN Group, Neotel, Orange, Saudi Telecom, Sudan Telecom Company, Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited, Telkom Kenya, Telkom South Africa, Telma (Telecom Malagasy), Vodacom DRC, WIOCC, Zambia Telecom. 

According to Many Possibilities, EASSy is 90% African-owned although that ownership is underwritten by a substantial investment by Development Financial Institutions (DFIs) including World Bank/IFC, EIB, AfDB, AFD, and KfW. Total DFI investment is apparently $70.7 million, with $18.2 million coming from IFC, 14.5 million from AfDB. This is a smaller amount than the originally advertised $120 million investment from DFIs.

South African investors in EASSY include Telkom/Vodacom ($18.9 million) , MTN ($40.3 million),  and Neotel (~$11 million). MTN is  the largest operator investor in the EASSy project. Telkom is the landing party and owner of the Mtunzini cable landing station in South Africa. 

WIOCC is the largest shareholder in the EASSy Consortium and owns 29% of the EASSy cable system.

AfDB funding was a vital element in the setting up of the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC), which was established as a “Special Purpose Vehicle” (SPV) and largest shareholder in the EASSy submarine cable system.

WIOCC consortium members include: Botswana Telecommunications Corporation, Dalkom Somalia, Djibouti Telecom, Gilat Satcom Nigeria Ltd., the Government of Seychelles, the Lesotho Telecommunications Authority, ONATEL Burundi, Telkom Kenya Ltd., Telecommunicacões de Mocambique (TDM), U-COM Burundi, Uganda Telecom Ltd., Zantel Tanzania and most recently, TelOne Zimbabwe and Libyan Post, Telecom and Information Technology Company (LPTIC).

The South Africa Far East (SAFE) cable is a 13,500 km optical fiber submarine cable linking South Africa, Mauritius, La Réunion, India and Malaysia, ready for service in April 2002.

The SAFE Consortium includes Angola Telecom, AT&T, BT, Camtel, China Telecom, Chunghwa Telecom, Cote d’Ivoire Telecom, Ghana Telecommunications Company, KPN, KT, Maroc Telecom, Mauritius Telecom, NATCOM (Nigeria), Neotel, OPT, Orange, PCCW, Proximus, SingTel, Sonatel, Sprint, Tata Communications, Telecom Italia Sparkle, Telecom Namibia, Telekom Malaysia, Telkom South Africa, Telstra, Telxius, Verizon, Vodafone, inclusive of members in SAT3/WACS. 

The SAFE cable system was supplied by Tyco Submarine Systems (now SubmCom).

The SAFE cable lands at the following cable landing stations:

• Mtunzini, South Africa
• Melkbosstrand, South Africa
• St. Paul, La Reunion
• Baie Jacotet, Mauritius
• Cochin, India
• Penang, Malaysia

The SAFE cable system consists of two fiber pairs, with an initial design capacity of 10Gbps, and upgraded to 130Gbps.

SAFE and SAT-3 / WASC are commonly considered as one cable system SAT-3/WASC/SAFE, forming a 28000km submarine cable linking Europe, Africa and Asia.

At the Melkbosstrand cable landing station in South Africa, the SAT-3 / WASC and the SAFE are interconnected.

The SAT-3 / WASC cable spans approxiamately 14,500 km connecting South Africa, West Africa and Europe, northwards to Sesimbra in Portugal, with a total capacity of 120 Gbps.

RJK (Russia-Japan-Korea) is a submarine cable system linking Russia, Japan and Korea. The RJK cable consists of two fiber pairs, stretches of 1762 Km, with three cable landing station:

• Nakhodka, Russia, Rostelecom;
• Naoetsu, Japan, KDDI;
• Pusan, Korea, KT.

The RJK cable system was designed with 560 Mbps PDH system over each fiber pair. The RJK cable system began operation in January 1995 and retired in 2008. 

The RJCN (or Russia-Japan Cable Network) is a 1800-km submarine cable system with diverse cable routes connecting Japan and Russia, with a design capacity of 640 Gbps. The RJCN was ready for service on September 5 2008. By interconnecting with the Transit Europe Asia (TEA) terrestrial cable, the RJCN and the TEA can offer the shortest latency (approximately 196 ms) between Tokyo and London. And 10 Gbps transparent wavelength is available on the RJCN and TEA route.

The Hokkaido-Sakhalin Cable System (HSCS) is a 500km undersea cable system between Ishikari, Hokkaido in Japan and Nevelsk, Sakhalin in Russia, jointly built by TTK and NTT, ready for service on July 3, 2008

The HSCS has a inital design capacity of 640 Gbps.

In 2018, the HSCS was upgraded with 200 Gbps DWDM technology for a total system capacity up to 5.4 Tbps, and activated the first 100 Gbps channel between Tokyo and Amsterdam. 

With the seamless combination of the HSCS and TTK's terrestrial backbone across Russia to Europe, it forms a low latency route, Europe-Russia-Japan (ERJ), with latency (RTD) of 144ms between Tokyo and Amsterdan.

The Europe India Gateway (EIG) is a 15,000km international fiber optic submarine cable system that links 12 countries across 3 continents, including

• the United Kingdom,
• Portugal,
• Gibraltar,
• Monaco,
• France,
• Libya,
• Egypt,
• Saudi Arabia,
• Djibouti,
• Oman,
• United Arab Emirates, and
• India.

The EIG consortium consists of 16 telecommunications carriers, including AT&T, Bharti Airtel, BSNL, BT, Djibouti Telecom, du, Gibtelecom, Libya International Telecommunications Company, MTN, Omantel, Portugal Telecom, Saudi Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Telkom South Africa, Verizon and Vodafone.

The EIG cable system was originally supplied by TE SubCom and ASN, TE SubCom supplying segments from Egypt South (Suez), Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, UAE and India (Mumbai), ASN supplying segments from Egypt North (Alexander) to the UK (London)

The EIG cable system has three fiber pairs in most of its submarine segments and is deployed with 2+2 fiber pairs crossing Egypt. For more details, please refer to Europe India Gateway (EIG) Cable System Connectivity.

The EIG cable system was ready for service in February 2011, with an initial designed system capacity of 3.84Tbps, based on 10Gbps DWDM technology. There were upgrades on EIG in 2015 and 2020 respectively, deploying 100Gbps DWDM technology supplied by Ciena.

The IMEWE ( India-Middle East-Western Europe) submarine cable is a 12091km submarine cable system which links India & Europe via Middle.

The IMEWE cable system consists of three fiber pairs, with two fiber pairs on an express path, plus a terrestrial link connecting the cities of Alexandria and Suez in Egypt. The initial design capacity of IMEWE cable system is 3.84Tbps, as a 10Gbps DWDM system. 

The IMEWE cable system includes 10 cable landing stations in eight countries: India, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Italy and France.

The IMEWE consortium comprises of nine major telecom companies: Bharti Airtel (India), Etisalat (UAE), France Telecom-Orange (France), OGERO (Lebanon), Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (Pakistan), Saudi Telecom Company STC (Saudi Arabia), Telecom Egypt (Egypt), Telecom Italia Sparkle (Italy), and Tata Communications (India). 

The IMEWE consortium signed the Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) and the Supply Contract on 5th Feb 2008, with a total porject cost of approximately US$480million. The Supply Contract was awarded to Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN).

The IMEWE cable system was ready for service on 11th Dec, 2010.

In 2012, the IMEWE cable system was upgraded with 40Gbps DWDM supplied by Mitsubishi Electric.

In 2016, the IMEWE cable system completed an upgrade with 100 Gbps DWDM supplied by Mitsubishi Electric, increasing its system capacity to 5.6Tbps.

In Oct., 2019, Ciena completed the upgrade of IMEWE cable system, using Ciena’s WaveLogic Ai technology to deploy 200Gbps per wave on the majority of the IMEWE digital line section.

TGN-Eurasia, or TGN-EA, is a 9,280 km cable system linking Mumbai in India with Marseille in France, passing through Egypt, with a branching unit to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.  TGN-EA offers route diversity through a terrestrial route in Egypt without touching the Alexandria CLS & the Suez CLS.

TGN-EA cable system consists of two fiber, with an initial design capacity upto 1.28 Tbps, and one fiber pair express route between Mumbai and Marseille.

In Egypt, TGN-EA terrestrial paths run between the Abu Talat CLS and the Zafarana CLS. Tata Communications partners with Telecom Egypt for TGN-EA landing at the Abu Talat CLS and the Zafarana CLS and terrestrial paths between the cable landing stations, dropping TGN-EA capacity in Egypt for connectivity into Egypt and also extending the reach to countries like Libya, Cyprus, Sudan, Jordan, Syria etc through Telecom Egypt.

Tata Communications also partners with Mobily and other operaters for TGN-EA branching into Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, extending the TGN-EA cable systems into the Middle East, and establishing the TGN-Gulf cable system.

TGN-EA forms a part of Tata Global Network's (TGN) together with other cable systems like TIC, TGN Intra-Asia, TGN Pacific, TGN Atlantic and European ring, enables PoP to PoP connectivity allowing customers to terminate capacity at Mumbai or at Marseille and also at other TGN PoPs 

TGN-EA cable system offers low latency routes, with  round-trip-delay (RTD) of 92 ms between Mumbai and Marseille,  52 ms between Mumbai and Jeddah, 52 ms between Marseille and Jeddah.

TGN-EA cable system is a private cable owned by Tata Communications and supplied by SubCom. TGN-EA cable system was ready for service in April 2012.

TGN-EA and SEACOM are a common cable in some segments. In addition to its East African portion, SEACOM has two fiber pairs between Egypt and India, on a common cable with TGN-EA. TGN-EA represents another two fiber pairs from Egypt to India and the branch to Jeddah (i.e., TGN-Gulf). Both SEACOM and TGN-EA have one fiber pair on TE North for connectivity across Egypt to Europe.

The Middle East North Africa (MENA) Submarine Cable System (MENA-SCS) is a 8800km submarine communications cable system connects Italy, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and India. The MENA-SCS is now a private cable owned by Telecom Egypt.

The MENA submarine cable rans across Egypt via terrestrial parth between the Abu Talat CLS and the Zafarana CLS, avoiding the Alexandria CLS & the Suez CLS.

The MENA submarine cable system consists of six fibre pairs, initially designed with 96*10Gbps DWDM technology and a total system capacity of 5.76Tbps, upgradable to 100Gbps technology

The MENA submarine cable system was ready for service in Novmember 2014.

The MENA submarine cable system was a private cable owned by MENA-SCS, a 100% subsidiary of Orascom Telecom Media and Technology in Egypt. In 2014, MENA-SCS signed IRU agreement with Telecom Egypt to acquire terrestrial fiber pairs crossing Egypt, between Zaarafana on the Red Sea and Abu Talat on the Mediterranean for 20 years.

In September 2018, Telecom Egypt (TE) acquired MENA SCS from Orascom Investment Holding (OIH) for $90 million, through its 50% owned subsidiary Egyptian International Submarine Cable Company (EISCC) at a total value of US$90 million, including USD40mn for the equity value of MENA Cable System and USD50mn for its outstanding debt. Meanwhile, Telecom Egypt also acquired 50% of EISCC for US$15 million. 

After the acquisition, the MENA submarine cable system became the second private cable of Telecom Egypt, in addition to TE North.

Telecom Egypt signed with India's Airtel Company a memorandum of understanding to enhance cooperation in the maritime cable domain.

Prior to acquisition by Telecom Egypt, Indian operator Bharti Airtel enterd into an exclusive agreement with Orascom to acquire MENA-SCS in 2016. The deal was replaced by an IRU agreement between Bharti Airtel and Telecom Egypt.

In August 2018, Airtel and Telecom Egypt announced strategic partnership for global submarine cable systems. Later in October 2018, Telecom Egypt signed an agreement with Bharti Airtel that granted the latter IRUs (Indefeasible Right of Use) on the MENA Cable System and TE North Cable Systems. Additionally, Airtel purchased from Telecom Egypt large capacities on a long-term basis on SMW5 & AAE1. The deal between Telecom Egypt and Bharti Airtel amounts about US$ 90 million for IRU and additional 4% of annual O&M charge over the lifetime of the cable systems (min. of 15 years), which enabled Telecom Egypt to recover almost all cash flows spent on the MENA Cable acquisition. 

Additionally, Gulf Bridge International (GBI) partners with the MENA Submarine Cable System to provide onward connectivity from Oman to India and Western Europe across Egypt. GBI owns the GBI Cable System towards India and has provided one fiber pair of the two to MENA.  MENA Submarine Cable System owns the MENA cable towards Egypt/Italy and has provided one fiber of the two to GBI.

The Gulf Bridge International Cable System (GBI Cable System, or GBICS) is a private submarine cable system connecting the Gulf countries together and provide onward connectivity to the rest of the world.

The GBI Cable System is privately owned by Gulf Bridge International, established in Qatar in December 2008 with an initial investment of $445 million.

The GBI Cable System is designed with a self-healing core ring in the Gulf, with double cable landings at the major terminals of Qatar and Fujairah (UAE) and branched landings in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Oman, and onward connectivity to landing in India and Europe as well.

Gulf Bridge International contracts with the following partners as landing parties in corresponding countries:

• Omantel, Oman
• du, UAE,
• Batelco,  Bahrain
• Vodafone Qatar, Qatar
• Ooredoo(formerly Qtel), Qatar
• Kuwait Ministry of Communications, Kuwait
• Saudi Telecom Corporation (STC), Saudi Arabia
• Telecommunication Infrastructure Company of I.R.Iran (TIC), Iran 
• Iraq Telecommunications & Post Company (ITPC) , Iraq. 
• Sify Technologies Limited, India

The GBI Cable System is the first submarine cable landing in Iraq, at the cable landing station in Al Faw, partnered with the state-owned Iraq Telecommunications & Post Company (ITPC).  GBI cable network reaches Europe through Al Faw and terrestrial cables across Iraq and Turkey.

Gulf Bridge International contracts with Telecommunication Infrastructure Company of I.R.Iran (TIC) to land the GBI cable in Iran, with onward connectivity to many central Asian countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azarbaijan, Armenia, Turkey and European nations.

The GBI cable system lands at:

• Al Faw, Iraq
• Kuwait City, Kuwait
• Bushehr, Iran
• Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia
• Al Hidd, Bahrain
• Al Khor, Qatar (Vodafone Qatar CLS)
• Fujairah, United Arab Emirates
• Al Seeb, Oman
• Mumbai, India

The GBI Cable System was launched in Feb. 2012 with intra-regional connetivity in Gulf, and late 2014 for the whole system.

Gulf Bridge International partners with the MENA Submarine Cable System to provide on connectivity from Oman to India and Western Europe across Egypt. GBI owns the GBI Cable System towards India and has provided one fiber pair of the two to MENA.  MENA Submarine Cable System owns the MENA cable towards Egypt/Italy and has provided one fiber of the two to GBI. The MENA submarine cable system was delayed due to permitting issues in Egypt, was not completed until November 2014 after purchasing terrestrial fiber pairs IRU from Telecom Egypt to connect Zaarafana cable landing station and the Abu Talat cable landing station. The MENA cable was acquired by Telecom Egypt in 2018.

GBI/MENA cable landing station in Mumbai is owned and operated by Sify Technologies Limited. In March 2018, Bharti Airtel acquired huge capacity on GBI Cable System between Mumbai to Milan and its upgrade rights.

GBI also extended its IP network in 2016, to connect to Singapore, Datamena, Smarthub, Frankfurt, London and Amsterdam.

GBI also acquired a stake in BBG extending its reach into Asia.

Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1) is a 25,000km submarine cable from South East Asia to Europe across Egypt, connecting Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia,Singapore, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy and France.

The AAE-1 consortium signed the construction and maintenance agreement in Hong Kong on January 27, 2014, and launched the AAE-1 cable system for commerical service in June 2017.

The AAE-1 cable system is designed with 100Gbps technology, with a designed trunk capacity of more than 40 Tbps on 5 fiber pairs.

With diversified carrier neutral terminations at Telecom House in Hong Kong, Equinix SG3 and Global Switch in Singapore, and InterXion MRS1 in Marseille, France, AAE-1 is the unique robust, highcapacity low-latency bandwidth solution along the Eurasia corridor. 

The SEA-ME-WE 5 (SMW5) is a 20,000km submarine cable system connecting 17 countries through Points-of-Presence (POPs) from Singapore to the Middle East to France and Italy in Western Europe, with an initial system design capacity of 24 Tbps over 3 fiber pairs.

The SMW5 cable system has three fiber pairs between Singapore and Egypt, and four fiber pairs crossing Egypt to Europe.

The SEA-ME-WE 5 consortium consists of 19 leading telecom operators, including BSCCL, China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, China Unicom, Djibouti Telecom, Du, Myanmar Post and Telecom, Orange, Ooredoo, Telin, Saudi Telecom, SingTel, Sri Lanka Telecom, Telecom Italia Sparkle, Telecom Egypt, Telekom Malaysia, Telecom Yemen, Turk Telecom and Transworld. The SMW5 consortium signed the construction and maintenace agreement on March 7, 2014.

Alcatel-Lucent and NEC were awarded the SMW5 supply contracts, Alcatel-Lucent supplied the segments from Sri Lanka to France, while NEC supplied the Singapore to Sri Lanka segment.

The SMW5 cable system was ready for service on December 13, 2016.

In August 2019, the SMW5 cable system completed an ungrade with Ciena's coherent 200G DWDM technology, increasing SMW5 system design capacity to 38Tbps.

The Gulf to Africa (G2A) submarine cable system connects Salalah (Oman) to Bosaso (Puntland, Somalia) and Berbera (Somaliland, Somalia). 

The G2A Consortium comprises Omantel (Oman), Telesom (Somaliland, Somalia), Golis (Puntland, Somalia) and Ethio Telecom (Ethiopia). The G2A cable system is supplied by Xtera.

The G2A cable system comprises two fiber pairs, over a 1,500km subsea segment and a 1,500km terrestrial segment, with a system capacity of 20Tbps using 100G technology.

Arctic Fibre is a three-phase submarine cable project, planned to connect Asia, Canada and Europe through the Arctic Ocean.

Phase 1 – Alaska is a 1200 mile submarine fiber optic cable main trunk line between Nome and Prudhoe Bay.

Phase 2 – Asia, is planned to extend the backbone cable from the Nome branching unit west to Asia, with options for additional branches into Alaska. Phase 2 will create an option for a diverse path out of the United States to Asia.

Phase 3 – Canada-United Kingdom, is intended to extend the subsea system east of the Prudhoe Bay, Alaska branching unit along the Lower Northwest Passage to Canada and on to the United Kingdom. Phase 3 will connect to Northern Canadian communities and will provide a secure low latency route from Europe to Asia, and a diverse route option out of North America to Europe.

The Phase 1 – Alaska has been launched for service since early December 2017.

Quintillion Subsea Holdings LLC (“Quintillion”) acquired the assets of Arctic Fibre  in May 2016.

Pakistan & East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) is 12,000 km long, privately owned cable system that provides an open, flexible and carrier-neutral services for its customers. 

The PEACE cable system is designed with the latest 200G transmission technology and WSS ROAMD BU technology, which provides the capability to transmit over 16Tbps per fiber pair servicing growing regional capacity needs.

This PEACE cable system will substantially reduce network latency by adopting shortest direct route connectivity, providing cost-effective capacity in an economically growing region and enhancing route diversity between Asia, Africa and Europe.

PEACE is privately owned and invested by PEACE CABLE INTERNATIONAL NETWORK CO., LIMITED, a subsidiary of China-based HENGTONG Group and supplied by Huawei Marine. PEACE is targeted for completion in Q1, 2020.

The IOX Cable System spans about 8,850 km，connects Mauritius and Rodrigues to the East Coast of South Africa on one side and the East Coast of India on the other. The IOX Cable System consists of 4 fiber pairs in its trunk, with design capacity of 13.5 Tbps per fiber pair and 54 Tbps for the whole system. The IOX Cable system will reinforce Mauritius as a hub in sub-Saharan Africa.

The IOX Cable System will be the first open cable system in the region and is targeted to be completed in 2019.

The Mauritius and Rodrigues Submarine Cable System (MARS) is a 700km undersea cable connecting the Indian Ocean Islands of Rodrigues and Mauritiuswith, with a bandwidth design capacity of 16Tbit/s. The MARS cable system is built by PCCW Global, Mauritius Telecom and Huawei Marine.

The MARS cable system is expected to ready for service in 2019.

The Africa-1 submarine cable system spans 20,000km, linking South Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan and Europe.

The Africa-1 cable will land at Sidi-Krir and Zaafarana in Egypt, Port Sudan in Sudan, Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, Djibouti City in Djibouti, Mogadishu in Somalia, Mombasa in Kenya, Mayotte, Mahajanga in Madagascar, Fujairah in the UAE, and Karachi in Pakistan, with carrier-neutral points of presence (PoPs) in Marseille (France), Mombasa (Kenya) and Durban (South Africa).

The Africa-1 consortium comprises 13 members: 4 global telco carriers - Airtel, PCCW Global, BICS and China Telecom, 5 African telco carriers - MTN Group (South Africa), Mauritius Telecom (Mauritius), Telecom Egypt (Egypt), Sudatel (Sudan), Zain Sudan and Telma (Telecom Malagasy from Madagascar), 3 telco carriers from Middle East - Etisalat (UAE), STC (Saudi) and PTCL (Pakistan) and 1 non-telecom member Al Asab Trading Company. 

The Africa-1 consortium signed the Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) on 11 December 2018 in Dubai.

The Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1(DARE1) submarine cable system connects Djibouti (Djibouti), Bosaso (Somalia), Mogadishu (Somalia) and Mombasa (Kenya). With a finalized route length of 4,854km, DARE1 cable system delivers up to 36 Tbps of capacity to East Africa.

The DARE1 cable system is designed with a three-fibre-pair trunk, with each fibre pair delivering capacity of 40 channels at 300 Gbps.  The Bosaso branch of the DARE1 cable is of 108 km and two fiber pairs.

The DARE1 consortium is currently composed of Djibouti Telecom, Somtel and Telkom Kenya.

The initial investment cost of the DARE1 cable system is about US$86million.

The DARE1 cable system is supplied by SubCom. The DARE1 project is progressing on schedule and the system is on track to be ready for commercial traffic in June 2020.

The India-Europe-Xpress (IEX) will connect Mumbai to Europe and interconnect to the east coast of the US.

The IEX cable is built by Reliance Jio Infocomm and is expected to be operational in early 2023.

The East African Marine Systems (TEAMS) is a 5,500Km subsea cable connecting Mombasa in Kenya to Fujairah in the UAE, with two fiber pairs and upgradable system capacity of 5.6Tbps.

TEAMS cable system is 85% owned by TEAMs (Kenya) Ltd and 15% owned by Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  

The shareholders of TEAMS (Kenya) Ltd includes:

• 20% - Government of Kenya
• 32% - Safaricom Ltd
• 23% - Telkom Kenya
• 10% - Kenya Data Networks Ltd
• 6% - Wananchi Group
• 5% - Jamii Telecom Ltd
• 1.8% - Access Kenya Group
• 1.2% - BCS Group

Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN) was awarded the $79 million contract to supply and construct the TEAMS cable system in October 2007.

The TEAMS cable system was completed in August 2009 and went live for commercial service on 1st October 2009.

The LION2 (Lower Indian Ocean NetWork II) is a 2700km submarine cable network connecting LION1 to Mayotte and Mombasa, Kenya. The Lion2 is an extension of the LION1.

The LION2 consortium includes France Telecom-Orange and its subsidiaries Mauritius Telecom, Orange Madagascar and Telkom Kenya, and other service providers Emtel, Societe Reunionnaise du Radiotelephone and STOI Internet.

The LION2 cable system costs about $76 million with $42 million coming directly from France Telecom.

The LION2 cable system was ready for service in April 2012, with a design capacity of 1.28Tbps.

The LION2 submarine cable is connected through a new landing station at Nyali, Mombasa, built and operated by Telkom Kenya.

LION1 is a 1000km submarine cable connecting Madagascar, Réunion and Mauritius, with 1.28Tbps design capacity. LION 1 was ready for service in March, 2010.

The LION 1 consortium comprises Orange Madagascar, Mauritius Telecom and France Telecom S.A.. Overall, the LION project cost an estimated US$37 million. 

TE North (Telecom Egypt North) is a 3600km submarine cable linking Egypt and France, with a branching unit to Cyprus, ready for service in 2010, supplied by ASN.

The TE North Cable System consists of 8 fiber pairs, with initial design capacity of 10Tbps, or 1.28Tbps per fiber pair, upgraded to 20Tbps with 64x40Gbps DWDM technology in 2011.

The TE North Cable System lands at:

1. Marseille, France
2. Abu Talat, Alexandria Governorate, Egypt
3. Pentaskhinos, Cyprus

The total cost of the TE North is about US$155 million, including US$125 million for the segment from Egypt to France and US$30 million for the extension to Cyprus.

TE North is the first submarine cable to land at the Abu Talat Cable Landing Station, in the west of Alexandria CLS which previously served as Egypt’s international communications gateway.

SEACOM, Tata Communications' TGN-EA and CYTA's ALEXANDROS cable systems are customers of Telecom Egypt and share fiber pairs with TE North.

TE North shares fiber pairs to SEACOM and TGN-EA from Abu Talat CLS to Marseille CLS. Both SEACOM and TGN-EA  have one fiber pair on TE North for connectivity from Egypt to Europe.

TE North shares fiber pairs with ALEXANDROS submarine cable system, one fiber pair from Pentaskhinos CLS to Abu Talat CLS, and one fiber pair from Pentaskhinos CLS to Marseille CLS. The ALEXANDROS submarine cable system is a private cable owned by Cyta of Cyprus.

For more infomration about submarine cables crossing Egypt and the cost of Egypt-crossing, please visit A Study on Submarine Cables Crossing Egypt and their Costs.

HAWK is a 3400km submarine cable system connecting Egpyt to France, with a branching unit to Cyprus, ready for service in 2011, privately owned by Global Cloud Xchange (GCX)

The HAWK Cable System is designed with 20Tbps system capacity and two fiber pairs, one express fiber pair connecting Marseille CLS in France and Alexandria CLS in Egypt and another fiber pair with a branch to Yeroskipos CLS in Cyprus. Cyprus' private operator PrimeTel owns and operates the Yeroskipos CLS.

PrimeTel, established in Cyprus in 2003, operates the only private island-wide fiber optic network alternative to Cyta (Cyprus Telecommunications Authority), a corporate body wholly owned by the government of the Republic of Cyprus. PrimeTel owns and operates an independent, privately owned submarine cable landing station in Yeroskipos, for the landing of HAWK cable. 

The HAWK cable system that was built by Reliance Globalcom (now Global Cloud Xchange, GCX) to initially set up the world’s first Mediterranean Gateway and Hub at Cyprus. Hawk was initially launched on the Marseille-Cyprus segment to provide adequate bandwidth for local service providers who were concentrating on meeting high speed connectivity needs of emerging broadband internet users in Cyprus. 

The HAWK cable system integrates with GCX's FALCON cable system in Suez, Egypt, extends connectivity from India to Europe, offers end-to-end connectivity between London, Paris, Frankfurt, Marseille, Cyprus, Egypt, Mumbai, etc.

Aletar is a 787 km submarine cable system connecting Tartous in Syria to Alexandria in Egypt. 

The Aletar cable system consists of two fibre pairs with eight optical amplifiers, with a design capacity of 5 Gbps, ready for service on April 7, 1997.

The Aletar consortium comprises Egyptian  Telecom. Management(Telecom Egypt, 46.875%), Syrian Telecom. Est.(46.875%),Lebanese Ministry of Telecom (6.25%).L.ebanese Ministry Of Telecom.

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LEV is a 2600km submarince cable system in the Mediterranean Sea linking Italy, Cyprus and Israel.

The LEV cable system has a design transmission capacity of 20 Gbps, ready for service in March 1999.

The LEV cable consists of 2 fiber pairs. Each fiber pair has the initial design capacity of 8 wavelengths of 2.5G. The LEV cable system forms a ring pretection among the cable landing station, each 2 landing points have exactly one fiber pair connecting them, forming one fiber ring with total capacity of 20Gbps.

The LEV cable system lands at the following stations:

• Tel Aviv, Israel
• Yeroskipou, Cyprus
• Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, Italy
• Catania, Sicily, Italy (terrestrial extension from Mazara del Vallo to Catania)

The Melting Pot Indianoceanic Submarine System (METISS) is a fibre optic cable system connecting Mauritius to South Africa, consists of 3,200 km trunk from Mauritius to South Africa and branching units to Reunion Island and Madagascar, with design capacity of 24Tbps.

The METISS consortium comprises Canal+ Télécom, CEB Fibernet, Emtel, Zeop, SRR (SFR) Telma. The METISS consortium has contracted Liquid Telecom to act as the Landing Party in South Africa, responsible for the installation of the terrestrial component of the METISS cable system and the operational aspects of the system in South Africa.

In South Africa, the METISS cable lands to a beach manhole at Pipeline Beach in Amanzimtoni, in the south of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. The Amanzimtoni cable landing staion is an existing faclilites owned by Liquid Telecom South Africa which hosts and manages the METISS submarine cable and provides backhaul to carrier neutral Teraco data center.

The Blue-Raman cable system is new cable connecting India, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Italy, creating a new submarine cable route through the EMEA region, bypassing Egypt.

It is reported that the Blue-Raman cable system is initiated by Google, in a partnership with Telecom Italia Sparkle and Omantel, and the Blue Raman cable system consists of two portions:

• The Raman portion of the cable will start in Mumbai, India,  with subsea segment connecting India and Oman and connecting to a terrestrial cable to from Oman to Aqaba Port, Jordan. Google is partnering with Omantel on the Raman portion.
• The Blue portion of the cable will begin in Genoa, Italy, rans undersea of the Mediterranean, across Israel to reach Aqaba.

The Blue Raman cable system is estimated to cost US$400 million, and to be ready for service in 2022.

ALEXANDROS submarine cable system is a private cable wholly owned by Cyta (Cyprus Telecommunications Authority), a corporate body wholly owned by the Republic of Cyprus. 

The ALEXANDROS submarine cable system consists of a fibre pair between Cyprus-Egypt and a fibre pair between Cyprus-France, implemented through Telecom Egypt’s submarine cable system TE North, connecting Egypt with France, initially designed with 96x10Gbps DWDM technology, ready for service in 2010.

The ALEXANDROS cable spans about 3600km, and lands at:

• Pentaskhinos landing station in Cyprus,
• Abu Talat cable landing station in Egypt, and
• Marseilles in France

The ALEXANDROS subsystem is the result of the strategic co-operation agreement between Cyta and Telecom Egypt (TE), according to which Cyta participates on an ownership basis in the ΤΕ submarine cable system TE North, connecting Egypt with France. The TE North cable system has been constructed by Alcatel-Lucent and utilises eight fibre pairs with total capacity of more than 10Tbps. The TE North cable system is equipped with branching units which enable it to be extended to selected countries in the Mediterranean, thus creating a communication bridge between these countries, Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as business opportunities in the Mediterranean and Eurasia. Under the agreement, the TE North cable system has been extended to Cyprus via a direct branch and Cyta has acquired separate fibre pairs between Cyprus-Egypt and Cyprus-France, each with 96x10Gbps total capacity. The agreement also allows for an option of extending ALEXANDROS subsystem to Greece.

The Europe-Persia Express Gateway (EPEG) is a 10,000km fibre optic cable system providing Eurasia connectivity between Europe and the Middle East, bypassing Egypt. The EPEG cable offers route diversity from Frankfurt in Germany, across Slovakia and Czech Republic on one route, Austria and Hungary on the other route to reach Kyiv in Ukraine, through Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran and the Persian Gulf to Barka in the Sultanate of Oman.

The EPEG consortium comprises Rostelekom, Vodafone (formerly Cable & Wireless), the Iranian Telecommunications Infrastructure Company (TIC) and Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel).

• Vodafone is responsible for segments from Frankfurt in Germany, to the Ukraine-Russia border. In Frankfurt, the EPEG cable system is terminated at ancotel's Kleyer 90 carrier neutral data center.
• Rostelecom together with the Azerbaijani partner DeltaTelecom is responsible for segments the Ukraine-Russia border to the Russia-Azerbaijan border and through Azerbaijan to the Azerbaijan-Iran border.
• The TIC is responsible for the segment from the Azerbaijan-Iran border (Astara) to Jask on the coast of the Persian Gulf.
• Omantel builds the submarine segments to Barka cable landing station as part its OMRAN/EPEG cable system, and the extension to Muscat, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman.

The EPEG cable system offers a low latency route between Frankfurt and Barka, Muscat, with 9,430 km and RTD of 91.97 ms over the short route, and RTD of 98.51ms over the long route.

The EPEG cable system has an initial capacity of 540 Gbps (54*10Gbps), and design capacity up to 3.2Tbps. 

The total cost of the EPEG cable system is about US$200 million.

The EPEG was put in operation in December 2012.

2Africa is one of the largest subsea projects in the world, connecting 23 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe and extending to Asia via the main Europe-to-Asia subsea cables, with a cable length of 37,000km long and 21 landings in 16 countries in Africa.

The 2Africa cable system will implement a new technology, SDM1 from ASN, allowing deployment of up to 16 fibre pairs, incorporating optical switching technology to enable flexible management of bandwidth. Cable burial depth has also been increased by 50% compared to older systems, and cable routing will avoid locations of known subsea disturbance, all helping to ensure the highest levels of availability.

2Africa will be the first time Wavelength Selective Switching (WSS)-ROADM is utilized in Africa, allowing for more flexible capacity management. 2Africa is also the first system of its size to make use of an innovative aluminum conductor for submarine cable systems.

The 2Africa cable system has a design capacity of up to 180Tbps on key parts of the system.

The 2Africa consortium comprises China Mobile International, Djibouti Telecom, Facebook, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC. 

Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) has been awarded to build the 2Africa cable.

The 2Africa cable system is expected to go live in 2023/4.

The Trans Europe Asia System (TEAS) is a new generation of data transport infrastructure which will serve the rapidly growing requirements of the markets between Europe and India.

TEAS represents a unique opportunity to deploy an advanced network infrastructure which will provide an integration of data transport with open market access utilizing next-generation technology and is supported by local partners in each market.

The Trans Europe Asia System (TEAS) is developed by Cinturion Corp Ltd., with funding support from Stonecourt Capital, an investment firm based in New York.

The Arctic Connect subsea cable is a Finnish plan to link Europe and Asia through a submarine communication cable on the seabed along the Northern Sea Route (NSR), an initiative of the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications and implemented by the Finnish state-owned infrastructure operator Cinia Ltd.

The total length of the Arctic Connect subsea cable will be 13,800 km. The Arctic Connect subsea cable project is expected to be finished between 2022-2023 with an estimated cost of 0.8 to 1.2 billion USD.

The Arctic Connect project is part of the efforts to improve the connectivity in Arctic areas, in line with the objectives of the Arctic Council. Previously, Cinia has already planned and completed the fast and cyber secure C-Lion1 submarine cable connection between Finland and Germany. The Arctic Connect cable aims to meet the current availability of and additional need for fibre-optic connectivity that are planned from Southern Finland to Kirkenes, Norway and Murmansk, Russia.

In March 2016, the Finnish state-owned company Cinia Ltd announced to build the Arctic Connect undersea data cable connecting Europe with Asia. The Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communication is the majority stakeholder of Cinia Ltd. Cinia has already built the C-Lion1 submarine cable that connects Helsinki and Rostock.

By adding the Arctic Connect subsea cable on the Arctic seabed, Cinia will be able to connect Europe with Russia and Asia, and provide a better internet connection with lower latency, thanks to the shorter distance. Additionally, the lower shipping traffic along the NSR will make Arctic Connect cable less prone to disruptions caused by human activities.

A preliminary study for Arctic Connect was launched in 2015, followed by a political feasibility study conducted the next year.

In June 2019, Cinia and Megafon signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the Arctic Connect subsea cable project. In December 2019, Megafon agreed to create the split-ownership joint venture Arctic Link Development Oy with Cinia for the construction of the Artic Connect submarine cable.

The Artic Connect submarine cable will be owned by an international consortium. According to a report by the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communication, Norway, Russia, Japan and China have all shown interest in the Arctic Connect project.

Finland has already been successful in attracting investments into building data centres. In September 2019, Google announced an additional investment of €600 million to its already existing Hamina data centre, which raises the total investment by Google in Hamina to almost €2 billion.

The Kalaam Network Optical Transit (KNOT) is a new fiber-optic terrestrial international cable system that enhances regional and international connectivity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

The KNOT terrestrial cable system spans over 1,400km, providing capacity of 12.8 Tbps and beyond with lowest latency connectivity to the MENA region. Given the cable is carried over an optical ground wire associated with a regional high-tension electricity network (GCCIA), it reduces the risk of cable cuts significantly, as is evident from the very high availability of the GCCIA network over the past 5 years.

This KNOT terrestrial cable system is fully owned and operated by Kalaam Telecom Group, and supplied by Ciena.

The KNOT terrestrial cable system provides route diversity across the Middle East by connecting Kalaam Telecom's meshed transmission network across 12 countries, homing 16 Points of Presence (PoP) and further connecting the MENA region as a gateway through Kalaam Telecom's POPs in Europe and Asia. 

The KNOT terrestrial cable system is expected to go live in Q4-2020.

The Pacific Fibre cable is a new 12,750km (7,920 miles) trans-pacific subsea fiber optic cable linking Australia, New Zealand and the US, with cable landing stations in Sydney, Auckland and Los Angeles. The Pacific Fibre cable system consists of two fiber pairs, with 128 wavelengths per fibre pair. By using the latest 40 Gbps per wavelength technology, the Pacific Fibre is expected to have a capacity of up to 5.12 Tbps, and will be further upgradeable to beyond 12 Tbps with future 100 Gbps per wavelength technology.

The Pacific Fibre is the second international submarine cable system landing in New Zealand, with significant improvement to the international network resilience in New Zealand.

The Pacific Fibre is expected to be ready for service in 2014.

Unfortunately, the Pacific Fibre has ceased operation as at 1 August 2012, citing an inability to raise enough investment to fund the cable build.

Optikor Network is a new trans-Tasman submarine cable system connecting Sydney, Australia with South Island and North Island, New Zealandlink, with a cable length of more than 3000 km. The trans-Tasman Optikor Network is designed to provide initially a capacity of 120 Gbps with 1 fiber pair, and eventually 6.4 Tbps with 2 fibre pairs.

Axin Limited initiated the trans-Tasman Optikor Network in September 2011. Axin Limited, founded in 2010, is fully invested by the Sino Telecommunication, and plays major role in the national broad band project of New Zealand.

The trans-Tasman Optikor Network is expected to be ready for service by the end of 2013.

This  trans-Tasman Optikor Network will address the large capacity requirements in the Tasman region and bring competition to the capacity markets in Australia and New Zealand where are now dominated by the Southern Cross Cable Network and the undergoing Pacific Fibre.

Tasman Global Access (TGA) is 2300km submarine cable system connecting New Zealand and Australia.

The TGA consortium comprises Vodafone New Zealand, Spark New Zealand and Telstra.

The TGA cable system lands at: 

• Raglan Cable Landing Station, New Zealand,
• Oxford Falls Cable Landing Station, Australia

The TGA cable system consists of two fiber pairs, with a design capacity of 20Tbps, deploying 100G DWDM technology. 

The TGA cable system was supplied by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), with a total cost of about US$70 million.

The TGA cable system was ready for service in March 2017.

Hawaiki Cable spans 15,000 km, linking Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa, Pacific Island, Hawaii and Oregon, on the U.S. West Coast, with a design capacity of 43.8 Tbps of capacity. 

The Hawaiki Cable represents a solution to improve: 
- Trans-Pacific connectivity between Australia, New Zealand and the US 
- Trans-Tasman connectivity between Australia and New Zealand 
- Hawaii connectivity to Continental US 
- Pacific Islands connectivity to New Zealand, Australia and the US 

The main trunk of Hawaiki cable system is 100% owned and constructed by Hawaiki Submarine Cable LP (HSC LP), headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand. The total investment in Hawaiki Cable is approximately US$300 million (NZD 445m).

HSC LP and its affiliates owns and/or controls the cable landing stations ("CLS") in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Oregon, as follows:

• Australia: CLS in Sydney is colocated at Equinix SY4.
• New Zealand: HSC LP builds and owns a new CLS.
• Hawaii: HSC USA builds and owns a new CLS in Kapolei, with DRFortress acting as landing party in Hawaii.
• Oregon: CLS in Pacific City is leased from Tillamook Lightwave, who owns the CLS, with ACS Cable Systems, LLC operating the CLS in Oregon pursuant to an agreement with HSC USA. The SLTE of Hawaiki cable system is terminated at Flexential's Brookwood data center in Hillsboro.

American Samoa Telecommunications Authority ("ASTCA"), the government-owned incumbent local exchange carrier in the U.S. Territory of American Samoa, owns, constructs and operates the branch to American Samoa and corresponding landing station.

In October 2016, Amazon AWS purchased capacity in the Hawaiki cable system,  making it AWS' first investment in an international submarine cable system.

The Hawaiki submarine cable system was ready for service on Jul. 20, 2018.

In June 2019, Hawaiki Cable opened new subsea route to the US with direct access to Los Angeles, based on the most easterly segment of the SEA-US cable.

In December 2019, Hawaiki Cable announced to add a branch to New Caledonia, named ‘Tomoo Cable’, with the Société Calédonienne de Connectivité Internationale (SCCI) as the landing party in New Caledonia 

The Manatua cable system is a 3700km, 2 fibre pair system connecting Samoa, Niue, Rarotonga and Aitutaki in the Cook Islands and Tahiti and Bora Bora in French Polynesia. Each fibre pair is capable of operating at up to 10 Tbps. It is the first fibre connectivity to Niue and the Cook Islands.

The Manatua cable system has six landings: 

• Tahiti and Bora Bora in French Polynesia,
• Rarotonga and Aitutaki in the Cook Islands,
• Apia, Samoa, and
• Niue. 

The Manatua submarine cable system consists of

• a two fiber pair trunk connecting Apia and Toahotu (Tahiti)
• a two-fiber pair branch to Avatele,
• a three-fiber pair branch to Rarotonga and
• one-fiber pair branches to both Aitutaki and Vaitape. 

The Manatua Consortium is composed of:

• The Office des Postes et Télécommunications (OPT), the telecoms operator of French Polynesia;
• Avaroa Cables Limited (ACL), the cable operator of Cook Islands,
• Telecom Niue Limited (TNL), the telecoms operator of Niue; and
• Samoa Submarine Cable Company (SSCC), the cable operator of the Independent State of Samoa. 

The Manatua submarine cable system is supplied by SubCom,  to be ready for service in May 2020.

The Kumul submarine cable network (KSCN) is a 5,457-km domestic internet platform to link fourteen provinces and two national data centres in Port Moresby and Madang, Papua New Guinea (PNG). The KSCN also connects to Jakarta through Indonesia’s national backbone submarine cable network and further connect to Asia to form a new international internet gateway.

Located in the South Pacific, Papua New Guinea is an island nation with numerous mountains and volcanoes, where domestic telecommunications largely relies on satellite and microwave communications. Huawei Marine and PNG DataCo Limited, a Telecommunications Carrier established by the PNG Government, constructs the national submarine cable network to provide the backbone telecommunications needed by major coastal centers and islands in Papua New Guinea

The KSCN project, part-funded by the Chinese government. The PNG government approached China for funding support and the Chinese Exim Bank provided 85% preferential buyers credit to the PNG government to carry out the project.

Gondwana-1 is a 2151km submarine cable network connecting New Caledonia and Australia, ready for service in September 2008.

The Gondwana-1 submarine cable system is owned and operated by the incumbent government-owned carrier in New Caledonia, OPT. 

The Gondwana-1 submarine cable system consists of two parts, the main segment linking New Caledonia to Australia, and a short unrepeated segment from New Caledonia to the Loyalty Islands, with a landing stations at Poindimie (Main island), Mouly (Ouvea) and Xepenehe (Lifou).

The  Gondwana-1 submarine cable lands at the following site:

• Narrabeen beach, Brookvale Cable Landing Station, Sydney, Australia
• Poindimié commune, North Province, New Caledonia
• Mouli Island, Ouvea commune, Loyalty Islands Province, New Caledonia
• Xepenehe, Lifou commune, Loyalty Islands Province, New Caledonia.

The Gondwana-1 submarine cable system is supplied by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN)

The AJC Network (Australia Japan Cable Network) is a 12,700km submarine cable network connecting Australia, Guam and Japan, with two fiber pairs.

The AJC network was initially designed with 10 Gbps DWDM technology, with a design capacity of up to 64 waves per fibre pair over two fiber pairs. The AJC network runs through the six AJC cable landing stations, with two separate cable landing stations in each of  Japan, Australia and Guam. The AJC Network was ready for service on 30 December 2001.

The AJC network was upgraded the addition of 40G technology in mid 2012 and the addition of 100G technology in late 2013 and early 2014.  During 2018 AJC was upgraded with latest optical coherent technology to be equipped with some 5Tbps Australia-Guam-Japan. 

The Design Capacity of AJC is currently approximately 10Tbps.

The JASURAUS submarine cable system (also know as APCN Australian Extension) connects Australia (Port Hedland) with Indonesia (Jakarta), with total cable length of 2800 km and a design capacity of 5 Gbps. and brings Australia to the Asia Pacific Cable Netwoen/systems/intra-asia/apcnrk (APCN).

For more information about the JASURAUS, please refer to APCN cable system overview.

The ASSC-1 submarine cable system is a new cable connecting Australia, Indonesia and Singapore, comprises four fibre pairs and spans a distance of 4,600 km.

The ASSC-1 consists of three express fiber pairs directly linking Perth and Singpare and one omnibus fibre pair between Perth, Jakarta and Singapore.

The ASSC-1 cable system will have an initial design capacity of 6.4 Tbps, running at 40 Gbps technology, with the capability to be upgraded to 100 Gbps in the future.

The ASSC-1 cable system is scheduled to be ready for service by the end of 2013.

The INDIGO cable system is formerly named as APX-West.

In April 2017, AARNet, Google, Indosat Ooredoo, Singtel, SubPartners, and Telstra announced they have entered into an agreement with Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) to build the INDIGO cable system that will connect Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.

The INDIGO cable system spans 9200km, consists of two distinct cable projects, Indigo West of 4600km connecting Singapore to Perth via Jakarta, and Indigo Central of 4600km connecting Perth to Sydney.

The INDIGO cable system is designed with two fiber pairs, with a design capacity of around 36 Tbps and option to expand in the future. INDIGO cable system features new spectrum-sharing technology, each consortium member can deploy its own SLTE, upgrade their networks and enable capacity increases on demand independently.

In Australia, the INDIGO WEST lands at Floreat Beach in Perth, and the INDIGO Central lands at Coogee Beach in Sydney. The terminal equipment of INDIGO cable system is hosted at NextDC's P1, P2, S1, and S2 datacentres across Perth and Sydney.

The INDIGO cable system has been ready for service since the end of May 2019. 

Papua New Guinea is an island nation located in the South Pacific. The PNG National Submarine Cable Network is built and operated by PNG DataCo Limited, connecting 14 main cities in PNG, and with international connectivity by a link to Jayapura in Indonesia, and interconnection with PPC-1 at Madand cable landing station, onward to Guam and Sydney, Australia. 

The design capacity of the system is 8Tbps. And it is expected to be completed in 2018.

Trident Cable System is a 28 Tbps subsea cable, using 100Gbps coherent DWDM technology upgradeable to 400Gbps technology in the future, which will connect Australia, Singapore and Jakarta.

The Trident cable will have interconnection points in Equinix IBX data centres in Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore and Jakarta, as well as a landing point in Perth, providing greater connectivity for businesses, content providers and communications network providers.

The Japan-Guam-Australia (JGA) Cable System comprises JGA South and JGA North, interconnecting at a new cable landing station in Piti, Guam.

JGA South and JGA North are operated as separate cable systems. JGA South is supplied by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), while JGA North is supplied by NEC Corporation.

JGA South (JGA-S) is a consortium cable. JGA South consortium includes AARNet, Google and RTI. Spanning approxiamately 7000km, the JGA South lands in Sydney, Sunshine Coast of Queensland and Piti in Guam, with an initial design capacity of 36 Tbps (2*180*100Gbps) on 2 fiber pairs. JGA South is the first new cable ever to land in Sunshine Coast of Queensland, on the east coast of Australia, outside of Sydney. In Guam, the JGA South lands at the Piti-I CLS, with Google as the landing party.

JGA North (JGA-N), the 2700km segment between the Minami-Boso in Japan and Piti in Guam, is a private cable with RTI as the sole operator and investor. The JGA North cable consists of two fiber pairs, with an initial design capacity of 24 Tbps (2*120*100Gpbs). The JGA-North lands at the GNC CLS and data center in Piti, Guam. The Minamiboso cable landing station for JGA North is a new cable landing station owned and controled by NTT, which is built as terminal station for NTT's Jupiter cable system. The Minamiboso cable landing station will provide additional geographical diversity for U.S.-Japan traffic currently landing at KDDI's Chikura cable landing station and SoftBank's Maruyama cable landing station.

JGA South and JGA North were ready for service in March and July 2020 respectively. 

The Coral Sea Cable System (CS²) is a 4,700km long fibre optic submarine cable system linking Sydney, Australia, to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea and Honiara, Solomon Islands. The project also includes a 730km submarine cable system connecting Honiara to Auki (Malaita Island), Noro (New Georgia Island) and Taro Island.

The four fibre-pair international system delivers a minimum of 20Tbps capacity to Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands respectively, a total capacity of 40Tbps. This significantly augments Papua New Guinea’s existing submarine cable capacity. The Solomon Islands currently relies solely on satellite for international voice and data communications.

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

• A 4,700km submarine cable system linking Sydney to Port Moresby and Honiara.
• The Solomon Islands Domestic Network is also a 730km submarine cable system connecting Honiara to Auki, Noro and Taro Islands.
• Delivering faster, cheaper and more reliable communications infrastructure.
• Bringing both countries significant economic and development opportunities.

The Coral Sea Cable System (CS²) is supplied and installed by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), utilising ASN's 1620 SOFTNODE Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE) .

The Australian Government provides the majority funding (around two-thirds) for the Coral Sea Cable System (CS²), with PNG and Solomon Islands Governments jointly contributing up to one third of project costs. Known as the Coral Sea Cable System. The project costs approximately AU$200m (US$144.2m). 

The CS² consortium comprises Vocus Communications, Solomon Island Submarine Cable Company, PNG DataCo Limited.

Vocus Communications was selected by the Australian Government to implement the Coral Sea Cable System (CS²) project which lands at Tamarama Beach and houses the termnial equipment at the Paddington Cable Landing Station in Sydney.

The Coral Sea Cable System (CS²)  was ready for service in February 2020.

The TEA-2 terrestrial cable system is an upgraded cable system of the TEA, connecting major cities in Europe and Hong Kong, Beijing, etc, across Russia via RosTelecom's state-of-the-air terrestrial cable system and connecting to backbones of either China Unicom or China Telecom at the China-Russia Border in Heihe.

The TEA-2 cable system forms an affordable and stable Eurasia broadband internet infrastructure.

The TEA-3 terrestrial cable system runs across Russia via RosTelecom's terrestrial backbone and connecting to backbones of Chinese operators at the China-Russia Border in Manzhouli (Manchuria).

The TEA-4 terrestrial cable system is the latest serie of Rostelecom's TEA terrestrial cable route, including TEA, TEA-2, TEA-3 and TEA-4.

The TEA-4 connects Europe, Russia, Mongolia and China, through the China-Mongolia Border in  Erlianhaote (Erenhot).

The TEA-4 shortens latency from China to Europe via Rostelecom's backbone network, being comparable to the Europe-Russia-Mongolia-Asia (ERMC)  and the TMP Transit-Mongolia terrestrial routes. 

The Europe-Russia-Japan (ERJ) is an Eurasia cable route seamlessly combining TTK's terrestrial backbone network across Russia to Europe, and the HSCS cable system between Russia and Japan jointly built by TTK and NTT.

The HSCS was upgraded with 200 Gbps DWDM technology for a total system capacity up to 5.4 Tbps in 2018.

The ERJ cable offers a low latency route from Europe to Japan, with latency (RTD) of 144ms between Tokyo and Amsterdan.

TTK offers other Eurasia terrestrial cable routes to China, Europe-Russia-Asia (ERA)  and Europe-Russia-Mongolia-Asia (ERMC) .

The Europe-Russia-Asia (ERA) is an  Eurasia terrestrial cable system connecting Europe to China across Russia, jointly built by TTK and China Unicom.

TTK and China Unicom build the cross border terrestrial cable system at Manzhouli (Manchuria) in China and Zabaikalsk in Russia.

The ERA cable system is capable of 100Gbps DWDM, offering a low latency Eurasia route: 

• Hong Kong to Frankfurt: 156ms
• China/Russia Border (CRB) to Frankfurt: 98ms.

The Europe-Russia-Mongolia-China (ERMC) is an Eurasia terrestrial cable route connecting Europe, Russia, Mongolia and China, jointly operated by TTK and China Unicom via, Mongolia Railway.

TTK, Monglia Railway Authority (RailCom, now GEMNET) and China Unicom operate the ERMC terrestrial cable system via Erlianhaote (Erenhot ) in China-Mongolia Border.

In Mongolia, EMRC runs over 2 parallel optical cable routes of approximately 1000km each, along the railway connecting southern and northern borders of Mongolia along Sukhbaatar-Darkhan-Ulaanbaatar-Choir-Zamyin Uud. It forms OTN network with ROADM nodes and reserve protection in Mongolia.

The ERMC cable system is capable of 100Gbps DWDM, offering a low latency Eurasia route: 

• Beijing to Frankfurt: 109ms
• Hong Kong to Frankfurt: 146ms.

TTK offers other Eurasia terrestrial cable routes, Europe-Russia-Asia (ERA)  to China, and Europe-Russia-Japan (ERJ) to Japan.

The TMP Transit-Mongolia is a low latency Eurasia terrestrial cable from China to Europe, via Mongolia and Russia.

The TMP terrestrial cable is operated by China Telecom Global (CTG) and its partners in Mongolia and Russia, through the China-Mongolia Border at Erlianhaote (Erenhot ), in a similar route as the Europe-Russia-Mongolia-Asia (ERMC) terrestrial cable.

The TMP terrestrial cable features ultra low latency, with 

• Shanghai to Frankfurt: 158ms
• Hong Kong to Frankfurt: 169ms

The Diverse Route for European and Asian Markets (DREAM) is an 8,700km Eurasia terrestrial cable route conneting Germany, Austria, Sovakia, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and China, with extension from the Kazakhstan-China border (Khorgos) to Hong Kong through fiber cable backbones across China.

The DREAM terrestrial cable route was launched in 2013 by MegaFon with a partnership with Kazakhtelecom.

The northern segment of the DREAM route offers a diversity by connecting to the Baltic Highway cable, with 3000km route from Tallinn in Estonia to Frankfurt in Germany via Riga (Latvia), Vilnius (Lithuania), Warsaw (Poland), and Berlin (Germany). DREAM also offers diversity at the Kazakhstan-Russian-border, connecting to MegaFon’s backbone. And through MegaFon's backbone, the DREAM also connects to the South-West Asia Network (SWAN), which links Russia to the Caucasus region and Turkey. Launched in Q1 2015 with an initial capacity of 100 Gbps, SWAN is the result of a partnership between MegaFon and Georgian fixed-line operator SilkNet.

The DREAM terrestrial cable features low latency solutions from China to Europe, with

• Hong Kong to Frankfurt: 154ms
• Shanghai to Frankfurt: 142ms
• Kazakhstan-China border to Frankfurt: 87ms

The Super TSR (Transit Silk Road) is an ultra low latency Eurasia terrestrial cable route via the China-Kazakhstan Gateway, Khorgos.

The Super TSR was launched by China Telecom Global (CTG) through a partnership with a Kazakhstan operator in 2016.

The Super TSR features ulta low latency:

• Shanghai to Frankfurt: 147ms
• Hong Kong to Frankfurt: 159ms

TRANSKZ is a terrestrial route linking Europe and Asia, and offers low latency and protected services between all major European markets to China and Hong Kong.

TRANSKZ was launched in 2016 in partnership between RETN and Transtelecom JSC.

TEA NEXT is a new generation fiber-optic communication line connecting Russian western and eastern borders, launched by Rotelecom.

TEA NEXT consists of 96 dark fiber lines available to international operators and global OTT companies for Europe to Asia (Eurasia) connectivity.

The TEA NEXT will be constructed based on the cutting edge Ultra Low Loss optical fibre which allow for use of all advanced long-distance DWDM equipment. The mainline will pass along the shortest route from West to East of the country with stations in largest cities. 

The TEA NEXT will offer the shortest latency,  Round Trip Delay (RTD ) of no more than 85 ms from Moscow to Vladivostok and 55 ms from Moscow to Khyagt.

The TEA NEXT project is developed by Rostelecom’s newly founded company Atlas which will be supported by financial and strategic partners, including one of the Russian banks and a number of international investors and communications operators. Total investment will amount to US$500 million within several years. 

The TEA NEXT project is expected to be completed in 2023-2024.

The MONET is a submarine cable system hooking up Boca Raton in Florida with Brazil’s Fortaleza and Santos, with six fiber pairs and a total design capacity of 64 Tbps.

The MONET consortium comprises of Google, Brazil’s Algar Telecom, Uruguay’s Antel, and Angola’s Angola Cables.

The América Móvil Submarine Cable System (AMX-1) spans 17500km, connecting 7 countires, including the United States, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico, with 11 cable landing stations in Jacksonville and Miami, in the United States; Puerto Barrios in Guatemala; Barranquilla and Cartagena in Colombia; Fortaleza, Salvador de Bahia, and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic; San Juan in Pureto Rico and Cancun in Mexico.

The AMX-1 cable system is wholly owned by América Móvil, S.A.B. de C.V. (“América Móvil”) and its eight subsidiaries in the landing countries. The initial investment of the AMX-1 cable system costs about US$500million.

The AMX-1 cable system was launched for service in Dec 2013.

For more information, please refer to AMX-1 Cable System Overview.

BRUSA, a new submarine cable nearly 11,000 km in length linking Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza (Brazil) with San Juan (Puerto Rico) and Virginia Beach (USA), consists of 8 fiber pairs, with initial design capacity of 135 x 100 Gbps per fiber pair and ROADM technology. 

BRUSA is a private cable built and operated by Telefónica. The BRUSA cable system was launched for commercial service in Auguest  2018.

The BRUSA cable systems and the MAREA cable system jointly built by Facebook, Microsoft and Telxius are both landed at Virginia Beach cable landing station and  extended the backhaul capacity into Equinix DC2 and other data centers.

The Fiber Optic Austral (FOA) is the southernmost submarine cable in the world, connecting Las Lagos, Aysén and Magallanes in southern Chile.

The FOA cable system has a design capacity of 16 Tb/s and a length of 2,800 kilometers. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.

The FOA cable system is owned and operated by CTR (Comunicación y Telefonía Rural S.A.), and supplied by Huawei Marine.

ARBR is a 4-fiber pair, 48Tbps, direct POP-to-POP subsea cable system Buenos Aires (Argentina), and São Paulo (Brazil). With an interconnection with Seabras-1, ARBR enables the newest and most direct route between Argentina and the U.S.

It was reported earlier that ARBR to be deployed with C+L band technology. But such solution should be given up in the ARBR cable system. 

With Seaborn and The Werthein Group as owners, ARBR will be Argentina’s first and only transoceanic cable for Argentina that is not controlled by a large incumbent telecom company.

Construction is scheduled to commence in 2020.

The Curie submarine cable system is a four-fibre-pair and 10,500km cable connecting Los Angeles, California, and Valparaiso, Chile, with a branching unit for future connectivity to Panama.

The Curie cable system is designed with 18Tbps per fiber pair and a total system design capacity of 72 Tbps.

Named after physicist and chemist Marie Curie, the Curie cable system will make Google the first major non-telecom company to build a private intercontinental cable. Google claims it will be the first new cable to land in Chile in almost 20 years, and will become the largest single data pipe connecting the country.

In the US, Curie cable terminates at Equinix LA4 data center and cable landing station, where hosts another submarine cable invested by Google, PLCN.

In Chile, Curie cable lands at CenturyLink Cable Landing Station at Subida Leopoldo Carvallo 350, Valparaíso, and connects to Quilicura Google Data Center in Santiago, Chile. 

The Curie cable system is supplied by TE SubCom. The Curie cable system was ready for service on November 15, 2019.

GlobeNet submarine cable system spans 23,500 km serving North and South America with ring protection.

GlobeNet cable system lands at the following Cable Landing Stations (CLSs):

• Barranquilla, Colombia
• Boca Raton, Florida, USA
• Fortaleza, Brazil
• Maiquetía, Venezuela
• Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• St David’s, Bermuda
• Tuckerton, New Jersey, USA

GlobeNet cable system offers direct low latency services in the following routes:

• New York to São Paulo <108ms
• New York to Rio de Janeiro <101ms
• New York to Bogota <78ms
• Miami to São Paulo <113ms
• Miami to Rio de Janeiro <106ms

GlobeNet cable system was luanched for service in 2001.

GlobeNet is a portfolio company of BTG Pactual Infrastructure Fund II.

Malbec is a new 2,500 km submarine cable that links the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina and will have a branching unit to reach Porto Alegre, Brazil.

By connecting Argentina to GlobeNet’s network in Brazil, the new infrastructure will provide seamless connectivity between the Southern Cone of South America and the United States. When completed, it will be the first new submarine cable route to reach the Argentinian coast since 2001.

The Malbec cable system is co-owned by GlobeNet and Facebook, and it will be operated by GlobeNet. "Malbec" is named after the renowned Argentinian wine.

The Malbec cable system will be ready-for-service date for the first half of 2020

Kanawa cable system is a 1,746-kilometer cable linking French Guiana and Martinique, with two fiber pairs and 100 Gbps DWDM technology, delivering up to 10 Tbps capacity. 

Kanawa, the new internet highway and key driver of growth and development for French Guiana, delivers high-speed connectivity between French Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe.

Kanawa cable system is built, owned and operated by Orange, Kanawa is one of the most powerful cables in the Caribbean region.

Tannat cable system is a 2000km subsea cable connecting Uruguay (Maldonado), Brazil (Santos) and Argentina (Las Toninas).

The Tannat cable consists of 6 fiber pairs, with an initial estimated design capacity of 90 Tbps, supplied by Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks.

The Tannat consortium comprises Antel Uruguay, Google.

At Santos cable landing station, the Tannat cable system can interconnect with the Monet cable system to Boca Raton in the US and the Junior cable system to Rio de Janeiro.

The segment connecting Santos, Brazil, to Maldonado, Uruguay has been operational since mid-2018.  Google and Antel announced in July 2019 to extended Tannat cable system to the nearby coastal city of Las Toninas in the Buenos Aires province.

Junior is a 390 km subsea cable connecting Rio de Janeiro to Santos in Brazil, ready for service in 2018.

Junior cable is technically Google’s first private owned subsea cable, as a domestic subsea cable in Brazil.

At Santos cable landing station, Junior, Tannat and Monet cable systems interconnect seamlessly, to form key infrastructure of Google could platform connecting the US, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina along the coast of Atlantic. 

Google has invested in three private international subsea cables, i.e., Curie, Dunant, and Equiano.

The Pacific submarine cable system is a 7,300 km new undersea cable in the Pacific coast of Latin America, connecting Puerto San José (Guatemala) with Valparaíso (Chile), with additional landing points in Salinas (Ecuador), Lurín (Peru) and Arica (Chile). 

The Pacific cable system consists of six fibre pairs, with an initial capacity of 108 Tbps and the lowest latency from Guatemala to Chile.

The Pacific cable system is the first undersea cable since 2001 to connect Puerto San José (Guatemala) with Valparaíso (Chile)

The Pacific cable system is part of the ongoing commitment of the two largest telecommunication groups in Latin America, América Móvil and Telxius, to be ready for service in the end of 2020.

The Mid-Atlantic Crossing (MAC) cable system is a 4,600 miles (7,500 km) of submarine cable. The MAC cable system consists of two optical fiber pairs, with an initial design capacity of 1.3 Tbps.

The MAC cable lands at:

• Brookhaven Cable Landing Station, NY;
• Hollywood, FL; and
• St. Croix, U.S.Virgin Islands.

The MAC cable system was built by Global Crossing, ready for service in June 2000.

The MAC cable system is now part of CenturyLink's network assets, as well as Pan-American Crossing (PAC), South American Crossing (SAC), and Atlantic Crossing 1 (AC-1), AC-2/Yellow, Hawaii Island Fiber Network (HIFN), etc.

The Pan-American Crossing (PAC) submarine cable network spans more than 6,000 route miles (10,000 km), connecting the United States to Mexico, Central America, and South America. The PAC cable system comprises a self-healing ring (two fiber pairs) and WDM technology, with an intial design capacity of 20Gbps.

The PAC cable system was built by Global Crossing, ready for service in March 2000.

The PAC cable system is now part of CenturyLink's network assets, as well as Mid-American Crossing (MAC), South American Crossing (SAC), and Atlantic Crossing 1 (AC-1), AC-2/Yellow, Hawaii Island Fiber Network (HIFN), etc.

The PAC cable lands at:

• Grover Beach, California, United States
• Tijuana, Mexico
• Mazatlán, Mexico
• Unqui, Costa Rica
• Fort Amador, Panama
  
  
  

The South American Crossing (SAC) cable system includes undersea and terrestrial fiber optic ring network of projectapproximately 12,000 route miles (20,000 km).

The SAC cable system forms a four-fiber pair ring using dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology.

The SAC cable system was built by Global Crossing, ready for service in September 2000.

The subsea portions of the SAC cable system lands at:

• Las Toninas (Argentina),
• Fortaleza (Brazil),
• Rio de Janeiro (Brazil),
• Santos (Brazil),
• St. Croix (US Virgin Islands),
• Puerto Viejo, Venezuela
• Colon, Panama
• Fort Amador (Panama)
• Buenaventura (Colombia)
• Lurin (Peru),
• Valparaiso (Chile)

In 2015, Level 3 added an extension to the SAC cable system with a new branch to a cable station at Punta Bazan in Buenaventura on Colombia's Pacific coast near Cali. The new SAC Colombia spur has a design capacity of 4.5 Tbps and initial capacity of 400 Gbps.

Terrestrial segments of the SAC cable system connect to most major South American cities, including Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Lima, Cali, and Bogota. The SAC ring network completes on its southern-most end by a terrestrial link across the Andes between Las Toninas and Valparaiso.

The SAC cable system is now part of CenturyLink's network assets, as well as Mid-American Crossing (MAC), Pan-American Crossing (PAC), and Atlantic Crossing 1 (AC-1), AC-2/Yellow, Hawaii Island Fiber Network (HIFN), etc.

The AMERICAS-II Cable System (AMERICAS-II) is a 8,373 km submarine cable from USA to Brazil. The AMERICAS-II cable system was ready for service in August 2000.

The Americas-II consourtium comprises:

• AT&T,
• Level 3,
• Verizon,
• Sprint,
• Cable & Wireless Communications,
• Columbus Networks,
• Embratel,
• CANTV,
• Centennial of Puerto Rico,
• Corporacion Nacional de Telecommunicaciones,
• Telecom Argentina,
• Orange,
• Portugal Telecom,
• Telecom Italia Sparkle,
• Tata Communications.

The Americas-II cable system has 9 cable landing points and terminal stations (Segment T) at:

• T9: Hollywood, Florida, United States
• T8: Miramar, San Juan, Puerto Rico
• T7: Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
• T6: Le Lamentin, Martinique
• T5: Willemstad, Curaçao
• T4: Camuri, Venezuela
• T3: Chaguaramas, Trinidad
• T2: Cayenne, French Guiana
• T1: Fortaleza, Brazil

The Americas-II cable system coomprises 13 submarine segments:

• The trunk — segments S1, S3, S5, S9, S11, S12, and S13 — consists of four fiber pairs operating at 2.5 Gbps per wavelength.
• The branches — segments S2, S4, S6, S7, S8, and S10 — consist of two fiber pairs operating at 2.5 Gbps per wavelength.

The AMERICAS-II cable system consists of three interconnected rings (North, South, and West Systems), each operating at 2.5Gbps per wavelength collapsed ring configurations, initially in separate collapsed ring configurations, and a dedicated link between Curacao and Venezue not operating in a collapsed ring configuration.

Each fiber pair in each of the three rings has a capacity of thirty-two 155Mbps Basic System Modules (BSM), with each BSM containing 63 Minimum Investment Units (MIUs) and equipped at the outset for a capacity of 1008 MIUs.

The North System contains four fiber pairs in a collapsed ring configuration with ten wavelengths per fiber pair resulting in a total capacity of 20,160 MIUs for operation and 20,160 MIUs for protection, the cable station at Hollywood, Florida, an appropriate share of the cable station at St. Croix, USVI, and the system interfaces. These four fiber pairs was initially configured as two independent bi-directional rings, each consisting of two fiber pairs directly interconnecting St. Croix, USVI and Hollywood, Florida.

The South System capacity supports the South Ring System and the Southwest System. The South Ring System contains four fiber pairs in a collapsed ring configuration with eight wavelengths per fiber pair resulting in a total capacity of 16,128 MIUs for operation and 16,128 MIUs for protection, the cable station at Fortaleza, Brazil, an appropriate share of the cable station at St. Croix, USVI, the Branch cable stations or an appropriate share of those cable stations, and the system interfaces. These four fiber pairs was initially configured as two independent bi-directional rings, each consisting of two fiber pairs.

The West System contains four fiber pairs interconnecting St. Croix, USVI and Puerto Rico, with only two fiber pairs initially equipped with four wavelengths each, in a bi-directional collapsed ring configuration, resulting in a total capacity of 4,032 MIUs for operation and 4,032 MIUs for protection (including the cable station at Puerto Rico), an appropriate share of the cable station at St. Croix, USVI, and the system interfaces. These four fiber pairs was initially configured as two independent bi-directional rings, each consisting of two fiber pairs directly interconnecting St. Croix, USVI and Miramar, Puerto Rico.

MAYA-1 is a 4400km submarine cable system connecting the United States, Mexico, Honduras, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia, from Hollywood, Florida on the southern tip of the United States to Tolu, Colombia on the northern tip of South America.

The MAYA-1 cable system was ready for service in October, 2000.

Utilizing Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) and Direct Wave Access (DWA) with Erbium-Doped-Fiber-Amplifier (EDFA) technology, the MAYA-1 cable system has a system design ring capacity of 50Gbps of SDH capacity and 1910Gbps of DWA capacity after the upgrade in 2017.

The MAYA-1 consortium comprises: 

• AT&T,
• Sprint,
• Verizon Business,
• Tata Communications,
• Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC),
• Hondutel, 
• CANTV,
• Telefonica,
• BT,
• Orbitel, 
• MarcaTel,
• RSL Telecom (Panama)
• etc.

The MAYA-1 cable system consists of two segments (S and T) and various subsegments. Segment S includes the whole of the submarine cable and associated equipment. Segment T includes all of the cable stations and related equipment.

The MAYA-1 cable system deploys an interconnected collapsed ring configuration that contains two fiber pairs with five branching units connecting to the landing points.

Segment S consists of two fiber optic pairs initially operating at 2.5 Gbps per wavelength in one interconnected collapsed ring configuration. The initial design capacity of each fiber pair is equivalent to 48 Basic System Modules (BSMs), with a maximum upgrade capacity equivalent to 128 BSMs.  The MAYA-1 cable system has been upgraded to support a system design ring capacity of 50G of SDH Capacity and 1910G of DWA Capacity.

The MAYA-1 cable system has seven terminal stations and segments T:

• T1: Hollywood, FL, United States
• T2: Cancún, Mexico
• T3: Puerto Cortes, Honduras
• T4: Half Moon Bay, Cayman Islands
• T5: Puerto Limon, Costa Rica
• T6: Maria Chiquita, Panama
• T7: Tolu, Colombia

The Americas Region Caribbean Optical-Ring System (ARCOS-1) is a 8,700 km submarine cable system connecting 24 landing points in 15 countries, including the United States, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Curacao, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico.

The ARCOS-1 Consortium comprises ARCOS-1 USA, Inc, Inc and its wholly-owned direct subsidiary A.SurNet, Inc, and eighteen (18) international carriers, including:

1. Axtel S.A.B. de C.V. [Mexico]
2. United Telecommunications Services, N.V. [Curacao]
3. Alestra Comunicacion SRL de CV [Mexico]
4. The Bahamas Telecommunications Company Limited [The Bahamas]
5. Belize Telemedia Limited [Belize]
6. Compañía Anónima Nacional Teléfonos de Venezuela [Venezuela]
7. Compañía Dominicana de Telefonos [Dominican Republic]
8. Empresa Nicaraguense de Telecomunicaciones Sociedad Anonima [Nicaragua]
9. Empresa Hondureña de Telecomunicaciones [Honduras]
10. Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad [Costa Rica]
11. Level 3 Colombia S.A. [Colombia]
12. Internexa S.A.E.S.P. [Colombia]
13. Verizon Business [USA]
14. IC Investment Management, LLP [Colombia]
15. Telecarrier, S.A. [Panama]
16. Global Interlink [Bermuda]
17. Tricom, S.A. [Dominican Republic]
18. PREPA International Wholesale Transport, Inc. [Puerto Rico]

ARCOS-1 USA and A.SurNet and their affiliates hold 96% of the voting and ownership interests in the ARCOS-1 cable system, with the remaining ownership held by 18 international carriers, each with nominal ownership interests.

A.SurNet owns and operates the ARCOS-1 cable landing station in North Miami Beach, Florida.

After various acquisitions and transfers, ARCOS-1 USA and A.SurNet as well as the cable landing station in North Miami Beach and the majority of the ARCOS-1 cable system are now controlled by Liberty Latin America Ltd., a Bermuda company.

The ARCOS-1 cable system has twelve (12) fiber pairs on repeaterless segments and three (3) fiber pairs on repeatered segments, and a current end of life capacity of 8.4 Tbps.

The ARCOS-1 Cable Landing Station includes:

1. North Miami Beach, Florida, Estados Unidos
2. Cancún, México
3. Tulum, México
4. Ladyville, Belice
5. Puerto Barrios, Guatemala
6. Puerto Cortés, Honduras
7. Trujillo, Honduras
8. Puerto Lempira, Honduras
9. Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua
10. Bluefields, Nicaragua
11. Puerto Limón, Costa Rica
12. María Chiquita, Panamá
13. Ustupu, Panamá
14. Cartagena, Colombia
15. Riohacha, Colombia
16. Punto Fijo, Venezuela
17. Willemstad, Curazao
18. San Juan, Puerto Rico
19. Punta Cana, República Dominicana
20. Puerto Plata, República Dominicana
21. Providenciales, Islas Turcas y Caicos
22. Isla de Crooked, Bahamas
23. Cat Island, Bahamas
24. Nassau, Bahamas

ARCOS-1 Cuba Extension 

A U.S. law prohibiting doing business with Cuba following the Cuban Revolution in 1959 prevented any U.S.-Cuban cable building. Finally in 2016, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) dropped the last legal restrictions for a direct U.S.-Cuba cable. 

In 2018, ARCOS-1 USA filed the FCC an application to add a branch to Cuba and a cable landing station in Cojimar, Cuba (ARCOS-1 Cuba Extension). The cable landing will be accomplished by creating a branch from an existing branching unit of the ARCOS-1 Cable that lies approximately fifty-six (56) kilometers off the coast of Cuba to a beach manhole (“BMH”) in Cojimar, Cuba, located at N23˚10’ 1.55’’, 82˚18’ 54.58’’W. The new branch shall be designated as “Segment 26” of the ARCOS-1 Cable. The ARCOS-1 Cable will then extend through a cable land route to an existing cable landing station (“CLS”) in Cojimar, Cuba (the coordinates of the property are: Nlocated at N23˚9’ 44.98’’，82˚18’ 45.97’’W. The ARCOS-1 Cuba Extension will consist of two fiber pairs and will have an initial capacity of 100Gbps and planned capacity of 1.6 Tbps. 

ARCOS-1 USA and A.SurNet and their affiliates will own 96% of the capacity on the ARCOS-1 Cuba Extension, with the remaining four percent of the capacity to be offered to the 18 ARCOS-1 consortium members corresponding to the percentage commensurate with their ownership interests in the cable system. Columbus Networks Limited (CNL), or a wholly-owned and controlled subsidiary of CNL, will be the landing party in Cojimar, Cuba. The cable landing station in Cuba and the duct (cable land route) from the beach manhole to the Cojimar, Cuba cable landing station is owned by Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA), the incumbent, state-owned telecommunications provider in Cuba. The physical cable inside the duct will be owned by CNL or an affiliate of CNL. ETECSA will provide the Cuban cable landing station with updated telecommunications equipment to operate SEGMENT 26, and ETECSA will acquire an indefeasible right of use (IRU) on some capacity on SEGMENT 26 from CNL. Neither CNL nor its subsidiaries are, or will become, a licensed telecommunications carrier in Cuba. 

It appears that ARCOS could finally become the first commerical fiber optic cable to directly connect the U.S. and Cuba.  There are an existing cable between Florida and the U.S. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (the GTMO-1 cable system), and a cable from Guantanamo Bay to Puerto Rico (the GTMO-PR cable system).

The application for license for the ARCOS-1 Cuba Extension is still pending for approval. 

The Guantanamo Bay to Dania Beach Submarine Fiber Optic Cable System (GTMO-1) is approximately 1530km (950miles), connecting the Defense Information System Network (DISN) Facilities at Miami FL and U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO), in order to supply high bandwidth to Department of Defense (DoD) activities at GTMO, and improve long-haul communications between the continental U.S. and GTMO.

According to the U.S. Federal Register, The GTMO-1 cable system involves two existing, shore-based U.S. naval facilities where the GTMO SFOC will be landed end-to-end. On the continental U.S. end, the cable will be landed at the U.S. Navy's South Florida Ocean Measurement Facility (SFOMF) at Dania Beach, Florida; from there, the GTMO-1 cable system spans the entirety of Florida's Territorial Waters (3 nautical miles (nm)), extending through the U.S. Territorial Sea (12 nm) and Contiguous Zone (24 nm), with the majority of the cable system passing through a combination of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the Bahamian EEZ, and the Cuban EEZ to the nearshore landing at the American Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.

The GTMO-1 cable system is owned and operated by the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The DISA is a Department of Defense (DoD) combat support agency under the direction, authority and control of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence.

The DISA leases commercial dark fiber to facilitate the terrestrial connection between SFOMF and the Network Access Point (NAP) of the Americas in Miami, Florida to provide DISN node-to-node connection.

In May 2014, the US DoD awarded Xtera Communications the contract to build the GTMO-1 cable system.  Xtera Communicationst announced in June 2014 that it won the $31,220,394 contract for the 950-mile submarine cable system without ever mentioning Guantánamo. Xtera subsequently was awarded a $3.7 million contract to build the ground stations for the Guantánamo Bay to Dania Beach Submarine Fiber Optic Cable System, with a cost of approximately $35 million. Later in August 2017, Xtera was awarded by the DoD a contract of approxiamately US$43million to build a new submarine cable connecting Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and  Puerto Rico, i.e., the GTMO-PR cable system.

The GTMO-1 cable system was ready for service in February 2016. 

Currently, GTMO-1 cable system is the first submarine cable directly connecting the United States and Cuba, but it is not served for commerical use.

The Guantanamo Bay to Punta Salinas, Toa Baja, Puerto Rico Submarine Fiber Optic Cable System (GTMO-PR) is approximately 1,400 kilometers (756 nautical miles), connecting the Defense Information System Network (DISN) Facilities at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO) and  Ft. Buchanan, Puerto Rico, in order to supply high bandwidth to Department of Defense (DoD) activities at GTMO, and improve long-haul communications between the continental U.S., Puerto Rico and GTMO.

According to the U.S. Federal Register, The GTMO-PR cable system connects the Defense Information System Network (DISN) node located offshore at Guantanamo Bay (GTMO), Cuba to the DISN node located in Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico. The GTMO-PR cable land into a pre-laid shore end stub cable (installed in 2016 as part of GMTO-1 cable project) ending 19 kilometers (10.26 nautical miles) offshore of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba to the DISN node located in Fort Buchanan, Bayamon, Puerto Rico. The landing location for Puerto Rico is the Puerto Rico Air National Guard (PRANG) Radar installation located in Punta Salinas, Toa Baja through a horizontally directional drilled (HDD) pipe. For the subsequent connection to the Army Reserves Base, Fort Buchanan in Bayamon.

The GTMO-PR cable system is owned and operated by the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The DISA is a Department of Defense (DoD) combat support agency under the direction, authority and control of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence.

The DISA leases local circuit services to facilitate the terrestrial connection to the Army Reserves Base, Fort Buchanan in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. The DISA also leases commercial dark fiber to facilitate the terrestrial connection between the GTMO-1 cable landing station and the Network Access Point (NAP) of the Americas in Miami, Florida. With GTMO-1 and GTMO-PR cable systems, DISN forms node-to-node connection between the continental U.S., Puerto Rico and GTMO.

In August 2017, Xtera was awarded by the DoD a contract of approxiamately US$43million to build the GTMO-PR cable system. Earlier in May 2014, the US DoD awarded Xtera the contract to build the GTMO-1 cable system.

The GTMO-PR cable system was ready for service in September 2019.

The GTMO-PR cable system is not served for commerical use. 

The Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS) is a 6000km submarine cable connecting Ecuador, Panama, Colombia, Aruba, Curacao, Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States.

The PCCS consortium comprises:

• Cable & Wireless Communications (C&W Networks, a Liberty Latin America company)
• Setar,
• Cable Andino (Telconet),
• Telxius, and
• United Telecommunication Services (acquired by Liberty Latin America in 2019)

The PCCS has eight landing stations, including:

• Jacksonville, Florida, USA,
• Tortola, the British Virgin Island,
• San Juan, Puerto Rico,
• Hudishibana, Aruba,
• Cartagena, Colombia,
• Maria Chiquita, Panama,
• Balboa, Panama, and
• Manta, Ecuador.

The PCCS cable system consists of 9 segments, with 2 or 3 fiber pairs in most of the segments, and 8 fiber pairs in the segment between Tortola, BVI and Jacksonville, Florida. 

The PCCS cable system was initially designed with 8 fiber pair x 100 Gps x 100 wavelength DWDM technology, for the system capacity of 80 Tbps.

The PCCS cable system was supplied by Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN), ready for service on July 31, 2015.

The Colombia-Florida Subsea Fiber (CFX-1) is a 2400km submarine cable connecting the United States, Columbia, and Jamaica.

The CFX-1 cable system has cable landing stations in:

• Boca Raton, Florida,
• Cartagena, Colombia,
• Morant Bay, Jamaica
• Copa Club, Jamaica

The CFX-1 cable system consists of one segment with repeaters connecting Cartagena and Boca Raton, and a branch without repeaters connecting to Morant Bay, and a second landing in Copa Club, Jamaica

The CFX-1 cable system contains 2 fiber pairs on its trunk connecting Cartagena and Boca Raton and branch to Morant Bay, and 12 fiber pairs on repeaterless segment between Morant Bay and Copa Club.

Currently, the CFX-1 has a system capacity up to 12Tbps.

The CFX-1 cable system was a private cable owned and operated by Columbus Networks, currently owned by Liberty Latin America (Liberty Latam).

The CFX-1 cable system was supplied by Tyco (now SubCom), ready for service in August 2008.

The Alternativa Bolivariana para los Pueblos de nuestra América (ALBA-1) is a 1860 km submarine cable linking Cuba, Jamaica and Venezuela.

The ALBA-1 cable system is the first subsea cable connecting Cuba to the outside world. 

The ALBA-1 cable project was first announced in January 2007, and completed in August 2012, activated with traffic in January 2013.

The ALBA-1 cable system is owned and operated by Venezuelan/Cuban joint venture Telecomunicaciones Gran Caribe (TGC). TGC is 60% owned by state-run Telecom Venezuela with the remainder held by Cuba’s Telco Transbit.

The ALBA-1 cable lands at:

• Siboney beach, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
• La Guaira, Caracas, Venezuela
• Ocho Rios,  Jamaica

The ALBA-1 cable system has a design capacity of 5.12 Tbps.

Alcatel-Lucent, through its Chinese subsidiary Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell, was awarded the contract to provide turn-key solution for the construction of the ALBA-1 cable system, with a final cost of US$70 million. The initial cost estimate, from October 2006, was $55 million: $35 million for the undersea portion and $20 million to extend the cable to the Cuban and Venezuelan networks in Havana and Caracas.

The ALBA-1 cable system is currenlty the only one commerical international cable system connecting Cuba to the world. Beside, there are GTMO-1 and  GTMO-PR submarine cable systems landing at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, not available for commercial use. And the ARCOS-1 Cuba Extension is still pending.

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.

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 4^th, 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.

MainOne cable system is a 7,000km submarine cable with landing stations in Nigeria, Ghana and Portugal, with reserved branching units Morocco, Canary Islands, Senegal and Ivory Coast.

MainOne cable system is the first private subsea cable along the West African coastline, owned by MainOne Cable Company based in Nigeria. MainOne began the construction project in February 2008 and launched for commercial service in 2010. MainOne cable system was supplied by TE SubCom.

MainOne cable system has been proven to provide capacity of at least 4.96 Tbps.

MainOne cable is able to interconnect with SEACOM and other international cables from Seixal in Portugal, and extend to MainOne PoP at Telehouse North, London, via Tata Communications’ European and Transatlantic networks.

In September 2018, Orange announced to invest in the MainOne cable system, constructing two new branches and stations connecting the MainOne cable to Dakar in Senegal and Abidjan in the Côte d’Ivoire.

Equiano cable system is the third private international cable owned by Google and the 14th subsea cable invested by Google. 

Equiano connects Portugal and South Africa, running along the West Coast of Africa, with branching units along the way that can be used to extend connectivity to additional African countries. The first branch is expected to land in Nigeria. 

Named for Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist who was enslaved as a boy, the Equiano cable is state-of-the-art infrastructure based on space-division multiplexing (SDM) technology, with approximately 20 times more network capacity than the last cable built to serve this region. The SDM technology was first deployed in Google's second private subsea cable, Dunant.

Equiano will be the first subsea cable to incorporate optical switching at the fiber-pair level, rather than the traditional approach of wavelength-level switching.

A contract to build the Equiano cable with Alcatel Submarine Networks was signed in Q4 2018, and the first phase of the project, connecting South Africa with Portugal, is expected to be completed in 2021.

There is no announcement on the cable length and system capacity of Equiano yet, assuming more than 12000km and 200Tbps respectively.

Simba is a multi-stage subsea cable project led by Facebook. Its goal is to connect the entire continent of Africa to the internet, increasing accessibility while also driving down bandwidth prices significantly, which could make it easier to sign up new users. And it could be a major disruption to the current service provider model. 

In May 2020, Facebook announced its partnership with leading African and global operators to build 2Africa submarine cable system. It means Simba cable system has been rebranded as 2Africa.

The South Atlantic Telecommunications cable no.3 (SAT-3) is a 13000km submarine cable connecting South Africa, West Africa, to Europe. The SAT-3 cable system has a toltal capacity of 120Gbps, ready for service in 2001.

The earlier SAT-2 had been brought into service in the early 1990s and SAT-1 was constructed in the 1960s.

The SAT-3 is also known as the West African Submarine Cable (WASC), commonly called SAT-3/WASC. The SAT-3/WASC interconnects with the SAFE cable system at the Melkbosstrand cable landing station in South Africa, forming a cable link commonly known as SAT-3/WASC/SAFE.

The SAT-3/WASC and the West Africa Cable System (WACS) are most important international subsea cables in West Coast of Africa. The WACS lands at the Yzerfontein CLS in Western Cape Town, the SAT-3/WASC lands at the Melkbosstrand CLS in Western Cape Town, South Africa, forming alternative gateways to South Africa.

The SAT-3/WASC consortium comprises 36 telecom operators. The largest three investors in SAT-3/WASC were (in order) TCI, a subsidiary of AT&T (U.S.A.); France Telecom (France); and VSNL (India, Singapore). The 11 African shareholders are (in alphabetical order): Angola Telecom, Camtel, Cote d'Ivoire Telecom, Ghana Telecom, Maroc Telecom, Nitel, OPT Benin, OPT Gabon, Sonatel, Telecom Namibia and Telkom SA Ltd. There are also Asian shareholders.

Although Telecom Namibia holds ownership in SAT-3/WASC, Namibia has no landing point.

The SAT3 / WASC lands at the following cable landing stations:

• Chipiona, Spain
• Altavista, Gran Canaria, Spain
• Sesimbra, Portugal
• Dakar, Senegal
• Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
• Accra, Ghana
• Cotonou, Benin
• Lagos, Nigeria
• Douala, Cameroon
• Libreville, Gabon
• Cacuaco, Angola
• Melkbosstrand, South Africa

The Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable spans 12,000 km along the west coast of Africa, connecting 18 countries including France, Portugal, the Canary Islands (Spain), Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, São Tomé and Príncipe, Mali and Niger (ACE Phase I).

Seven of these African countries – The Gambia, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Mauritania, Sao Tomé & Principe and Sierra Leone – benefit for the first time from a direct connection to a submarine cable. Two landlocked countries, Mali and Niger, connect to the ACE cable system through terrestrial network extensions.

The ACE Phase II will add 5000 km cable connecting Cameroon, Nambia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville and South Africa

The ACE consortium comprises France TelecomOrange, together with its subsidiaries Côte d’Ivoire Telecom, Orange Cameroon, Orange Mali, Orange Niger and Sonatel, have combined forces with other major partners to form an international consortium.

The ACE cable system costs a total investment of around U$700 million, with around $250 million financed by Orange group and its subsidiaries.

The ACE cable system consists of two fiber pairs, with a design capacity of 5.12 Tbps using 40 Gbps DWDM technology.

The ACE cable system (Phase I) was ready for service in December 2012, supplied by ASN.

The Nigeria-Cameroon Submarine Cable System (NCSCS) is a 1100km submarine cable connecting Kribi in Cameroon with Lagos in Nigeria.

The NCSCS cable system consists of two fiber pair, delivering 12.8 Tbps.

The NCSCS cable system forms part of Cameroon’s strategic plan for building a National Broadband Network. The NCSCS cable system is owned and operated by Cameroon Telecommunications Corporation (CAMTEL), the monopoly international and backbone network operator in Cameroon.

CAMTEL partners with MainOne of Nigeria to land the NCSCS cable at Lagos Cable Landing Station which also houses the MainOne Cable System. Through the MainOne Cable System, the NCSCS cable system can be extended to Europe and other coutries in West Africa.

The NCSCS cable system was supplied by Huawei Marine, completed in September 2015.

The Globacom-1 (Glo-1) submarine cable system is a 9800km submarine cable connecting Bude in UK to Lagos in Nigeria and the rest of West Africa. It has landing points in Nigeria, London, Lisbon in Portugal, Accra in Ghana, etc. 

The Glo-1 cable system consists of 2 fibre pairs, with an initial design capacity of 320 (32*STM-64), and upgraded to 2.5Tbps. 

The Glo-1 cable system is owned and operated by Globacom Limited of Nigeria, supplied by ASN with a total cost of about $250 million.

The Glo-1 cable landed in Alfa Beach, Lagos in Nigeria in September 2009, the whole project completed in July 2010. Globacom activated the Glo-1 cable system for service in October 2010.

The Ceiba-2 Submarine Cable Systemednesday is a 500km submarine cable connecting Malabo and Bata in Equatorial Guinea, with a branching unit to Kribi in Cameroon, with a design capacity of 8 Tbps, in operation since March 2017.

The Ceiba-2 is owned and operated by the Manager of Telecommunications Infrastructure of Equatorial Guinea (GITGE, El Gestor de Infraestructuras de Telecomunicaciones de Guinea Ecuatorial), supplied by Huawei Marine. 

The construction of Ceiba-2 started in October 2015 and was completed in March 2017, equipped with an initial 40 Gbps lambda system and is scalable to a 100 Gbps lambda system to meet future demand.

According to GITGE, Ceiba-2 cable system is an invaluable redundancy for the country. Equatorial Guinea is already connected to Ceiba-1, which connects Malabo to Bata, and ACE Cable.

The Ceiba-2 cable system also allows the ACE submarine cable to be interconnected with Cameroon, since the Ceiba-2 and ACE submarine stations in Bata are located next to each other and are interconnected with direct fiber optics.