Amitié Cable System Ready for Service

Aqua Comms, Meta, Microsoft, and Vodafone announced the completion of the Amitié subsea cable system, the first to directly connect Boston to Europe and Bordeaux to North America. Amitié has been fully commissioned and tested and was handed over to Aqua Comms, Meta, Microsoft, and Vodafone on July 16, 2023.

Constructed under a Joint Build Agreement between the four partners, supplied by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), the Amitié cable system spans 6,783 km (4,215 miles) across the Atlantic Ocean, has landings in Lynn, Massachusetts; Widemouth Bay, England; and Le Porge, France. The Amitié cable system consists of 16 fiber pairs on its trans-Atlantic trunk and 12 fiber pairs on each of its branches to the UK and France, with a total system capacity of 400 Tbps, being the highest capacity trans-Atlantic subsea cable ever deployed. Meta is deploying a new trans-Atlantic subsea cable, the Anjana cable system, with a system capacity of 480 Tbps.

The design of the Amitié cable system brings all users additional connectivity options in the United States, the UK, and in France. Boston will have direct connection all the way to London and a new Carrier Neutral Data Center constructed in Bordeaux. This delivers improved reliability in terms of protected capacity on multiple diverse routes.

The Amitié cable system includes an innovative branching unit 860 km from France and 650 km from the UK. This device allows the owners to switch either individual optical wavelengths between different landings or the full fiber capacity via two different types of switching technologies.

Meta is the landing party for the Lynn landing, and lands the cable at the Lynn Cable Landing Station owned by EXA Infrastructure ( formerly GTT) 

Vodafone is the landing party for the Bude landing, colocated with the Apollo Submarine Cable System. 

Orange is the landing parter for the Le Porge landing. Orange owns the portion of the Amitié cable system extending 12 nautical miles from the French shore, and grants to the Amitié consortium all their affiliates dark fiber IRUs on that portion of the Amitié cable system. Orange also acquires two fiber pairs on the Amitié cable system on IRU basis.

Aqua Comms, being a member of the Amitié consortium, brands its shares on the Amitié cable system as AEC-3, following its AEC-1 and AEC-2 trans-Atlantic cable systems.