Subsea cable systems
China plans $500 million subsea internet cable to rival US-backed project
Reuters reports that China state-owned telecom firms are developing a $500 million undersea fiber-optic internet cable network that would link Asia, the Middle East and Europe to rival a similar U.S.-backed project, four people involved in the deal told Reuters. The plan is a sign that an intensifying tech war between Beijing and Washington risks tearing the fabric of the internet.
China’s three main carriers – China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom), China Mobile Limited and China United Network Communications Group Co Ltd(China Unicom) – are mapping out one of the world’s most advanced and far-reaching subsea cable networks, according to the four people, who have direct knowledge of the plan.
Known as EMA (Europe-Middle East-Asia), the proposed cable would link Hong Kong to China’s island province of Hainan, before snaking its way to Singapore, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and France, the four people said. They asked not to be named because they were not allowed to discuss potential trade secrets.
The cable, which would cost approximately $500 million to complete, would be manufactured and laid by China’s HMN Technologies Co Ltd, a fast-growing cable firm whose predecessor company was majority-owned by Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the people said.
They said HMN Tech, which is majority-owned by Shanghai-listed Hengtong Optic-Electric Co Ltd, would receive subsidies from the Chinese state to build the cable.
China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, HMN Tech, and Hengtong did not respond to requests for comment.
The Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement to Reuters that it “has always encouraged Chinese enterprises to carry out foreign investment and cooperation” without commenting directly on the EMA cable project.
News of the planned cable comes in the wake of a Reuters report last month that revealed how the U.S. government, concerned about Beijing eavesdropping on internet data, has successfully thwarted a number of Chinese undersea cable projects abroad over the past four years. Washington has also blocked licenses for planned private subsea cables that would have connected the United States with the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, including projects led by Google LLC, Meta Platforms, Inc and Amazon.com Inc.
Undersea cables carry more than 95% of all international internet traffic. These high-speed conduits for decades have been owned by groups of telecom and tech companies that pool their resources to build these vast networks so that data can move seamlessly around the world.
But these cables, which are vulnerable to spying and sabotage, have become weapons of influence in an escalating competition between the United States and China. The superpowers are battling to dominate the advanced technologies that could determine economic and military supremacy in the decades ahead.
The China-led EMA project is intended to directly rival another cable currently being constructed by U.S. firm SubCom LLC, called SeaMeWe-6 (Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-6), which will also connect Singapore to France, via Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and half a dozen other countries along the route.
The consortium on the SeaMeWe-6 cable – which originally had included China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom and telecom carriers from several other nations – initially picked HMN Tech to build that cable. But a successful U.S. government pressure campaign flipped the contract to SubCom last year, Reuters reported in March.
The U.S. blitz included giving millions of dollars in training grants to foreign telecom firms in return for them choosing SubCom over HMN Tech. The U.S. Commerce Department also slapped sanctions on HMN Tech in December 2021, alleging the company intended to acquire American technology to help modernize China’s People’s Liberation Army. That move undermined the project’s viability by making it impossible for owners of an HMN-built cable to sell bandwidth to U.S. tech firms, usually their biggest customers.
China Telecom and China Mobile pulled out of the project after SubCom won the contract last year and, along with China Unicom, began planning the EMA cable, the four people involved said. The three state-owned Chinese telecom firms are expected to own more than half of the new network, but they are also striking deals with foreign partners, the people said.
The Chinese carriers this year signed separate memoranda of understanding with four telecoms, the people said: France’s Orange SA, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL), Telecom Egypt and Zain Saudi Arabia, a unit of the Kuwaiti firm Mobile Telecommunications Company K.S.C.P.
The Chinese companies have also held talks with Singapore Telecommunications Limited, a state-controlled firm commonly known as Singtel, while other countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East are being approached to join the consortium as well, the people involved said.
Orange declined to comment. Singtel, PTCL, Telecom Egypt and Zain did not respond to requests for comment.
American cable firm SubCom declined to comment on the rival cable. The Department of Justice, which oversees an interagency task force to safeguard U.S. telecommunication networks from espionage and cyberattacks, declined to comment about the EMA cable.
A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. supports a free, open and secure internet. Countries should prioritize security and privacy by “fully excluding untrustworthy vendors” from wireless networks, terrestrial and undersea cables, satellites, cloud services and data centers, the spokesperson said, without mentioning HMN Tech or China. The State Department did not respond to questions about whether it would mount a campaign to persuade foreign telecoms not to participate in the EMA cable project.
The Chinese foreign ministry said in its statement that it was opposed to the United States’ “violation of established international rules” around submarine cable cooperation.
“The U.S. should stop fabricating and spreading rumours about so-called ‘data surveillance activities’ and stop slandering and smearing Chinese companies,” the statement said.
Large undersea cable projects typically take at least three years to move from conception to delivery. The Chinese firms are hoping to finalize contracts by the end of the year and have the EMA cable online by the end of 2025, the people involved said.
The cable would give China strategic gains in its tussle with the United States, one of the people involved in the deal told Reuters.
Firstly, it would create a super-fast new connection between Hong Kong, China and much of the rest of the world, something Washington wants to avoid. Secondly, it gives China’s state-backed telecom carriers greater reach and protection in the event they are excluded from U.S.-backed cables in the future.
“It’s like each side is arming itself with bandwidth,” one telecom executive working on the deal said.
The construction of parallel U.S.- and Chinese-backed cables between Asia and Europe is unprecedented, the four people involved in the project said. It is an early sign that global internet infrastructure, including cables, data centers and mobile phone networks, could become divided over the next decade, two security analysts told Reuters.
Countries could also be forced to choose between using Chinese-approved internet equipment or U.S.-backed networks, entrenching divisions across the world and making tools that fuel the global economy, like online banking and global-positioning satellite systems, slower and less reliable, said Timothy Heath, a defense researcher at the RAND Corporation, a U.S.-based think tank.
“It seems we are headed down a road where there will be a U.S.-led internet and a Chinese-led internet ecosystem,” Heath told Reuters. “The more the U.S. and Chinese disengage from each other in the information technology domain, the more difficult it becomes to carry out global commerce and basic functions.”
Antonia Hmaidi, an analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, said the internet works so well because no matter where data needs to travel, it can zip along multiple different routes in the time it takes to read this word.
Hmaidi said if data has to follow routes that are approved in Washington and Beijing, then it will become easier for the United States and China to manipulate and spy on that data; internet users will suffer a degradation of service; and it will become more difficult to interact or do business with people around the world.
“Then suddenly the whole fabric of the internet doesn’t work as it was intended,” Hmaidi said.
The tit-for-tat battle over internet hardware mirrors the conflict taking place over social media apps and search engines created by U.S. and Chinese firms.
The United States and its allies have banned the use of Chinese-owned short video app TikTok from government-owned devices due to national security concerns. Numerous countries have raised fears about the Chinese government gaining access to the data that TikTok collects on its users around the world.
China, meanwhile, already restricts what websites its citizens can see and blocks the apps and networks of many Western technology giants, including Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
SEACOM telecom services now on Equiano subsea cable surrounding Africa
SEACOM, Africa’s leading telecommunications and managed services provider, announced that it has launched its services on the Equiano subsea cable, which landed in Cape Town, South Africa, in August 2022. As a result, the company now provides Private Line services, with an impressive latency speed of approximately 110 milliseconds (ms) between South Africa and Europe, making it the fastest direct route between the two continents.
The cable now forms part of SEACOM’s subsea cable ecosystem surrounding Africa, supported by a continent-wide IP-MPLS network. SEACOM fulfilled the necessary equipment and installation requirements with the help of its technology partner, Infinera.
Google announced the Equiano subsea cable in 2019, which is among Africa’s most high-capacity cables. The cable spans 15,000 kilometers from Portugal to South Africa, has twelve fibre pairs, and has a design capacity of 144 Tbps. The cable has a landing station in Melkbosstrand, Cape Town, as well as in other African locations, including Rupert’s Bay, St. Helena; Lome, Togo; Lagos, Nigeria; and Swakopmund, Namibia. Branching units from these stations will further extend connectivity to other African countries.
SEACOM’s Subsea Cable Ecosystem, Image courtesy: SEACOM
The company said, “The launch comes after SEACOM has completed extensive work to support the new connection, including upgrades to its transmission and IP network both locally and internationally. As part of the service available to wholesale and enterprise clients from March, SEACOM will offer an express route from Cape Town to Lisbon. This means clients will enjoy high-speed connectivity without having their data rerouted to other countries during transmission.”
“This launch results from years of project negotiations and planning, driven by a goal to be ready to offer quality service to our customers from day one. The Equiano subsea cable represents a new stage in Africa’s digital transformation, meeting Africa’s growing data requirements, enabling cross-border digital trade, and offering citizens and enterprises new opportunities,” says Prenesh Padayachee, SEACOM’s Group Chief Digital Officer.
“Infinera is delighted to partner with SEACOM to light the Equiano subsea cable with our industry-leading ICE6 800G technology,” said Nick Walden, Infinera Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales. “With the industry’s highest spectral efficiency, ICE6 enables SEACOM to maximise the number of high-speed services they can offer, providing multiple terabits of capacity on this critical subsea link.”
According to a Regional Economic Impact Assessment by Africa Practice, commissioned by Google and published in 2021, the cable will increase South Africa’s GDP by USD 5.8 billion and create 180,000 indirect jobs by 2025.
SEACOM has acquired a full fiber pair with a capacity of 12 Tbps on the Express Route, which results in reduced latency between Africa and Europe. As a result, the SEACOM Express Route provides the quickest and most direct path between Africa and Europe, with the lowest possible latency. This route enables Operators, ISPs, Telcos, Content Providers, and Enterprises with the fastest direct path between Africa and Europe with the lowest latency, connecting to key South African and European data centers.
References:
https://seacom.com/media-centre/seacom-goes-live-on-equiano-subsea-cable/
https://telecomtalk.info/seacom-services-now-live-equiano-subsea-cable/689226/
China seeks to control Asian subsea cable systems; SJC2 delayed, Apricot and Echo avoid South China Sea
Several offshore Asian subsea cable systems have been delayed and, in some cases, re-routed because of Chinese efforts to exert control over them. The Financial Times (paywall) reported Tuesday:
China has begun to impede projects to lay and maintain subsea internet cables through the South China Sea, as Beijing seeks to exert more control over the infrastructure transmitting the world’s data.long delays in approvals permitting and stricter Chinese requirements” have driven cable builders to design routes that avoid the South China Sea.
Long approval delays and stricter Chinese requirements, including permits for work conducted outside its internationally recognised territorial waters, have pushed companies to design routes that avoid the South China Sea, according to multiple sources inside the industry.
China has asserted the right to approve cable construction outside its 12-mile exclusive zone, applying its ‘nine dash-line‘ claim that covers almost the entire sea and has been rejected by all its neighbors.
One of the most prominent projects affected is the 10,500 km Singapore-Japan Cable 2 (SJC2), which has been delayed by more than a year because of Chinese objections and lengthy permit issues – despite the fact that China Mobile International is a consortium partner.
Two new cables being built from Singapore to the U.S. via Japan have been redesigned to avoid the South China Sea by circling around Indonesia. The Apricot cable system, backed by Google, Facebook and several Asian telcos, and the Google- and Facebook-invested Echo, are being built on new paths that are much more expensive design because of the additional length and the need for extra sheathing in the shallower waters.
- Apricot subsea cable system is a 12,000-kilometer subsea cable connecting Japan, Taiwan, Guam, the Philippines, and Singapore. NTT is responsible for operating and managing three cable landing stations for the Apricot cable system: Minamiboso CLS in Japan, Tuas CLS in Singapore and a cable landing station in Indonesia. PLDT will build new cable landing stations in Luzon and Mindanao as part of the Apricot cable system.
- Echo will run from Eureka, California to Singapore, with a stop-over in Guam, with plans to also land in Indonesia. It will be the first-ever cable to directly connect the U.S. to Singapore with direct fiber pairs over an express route. It will decrease latency for users connecting to applications running the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) regions in the area, home to some of the world’s most vibrant financial and technology centers.
‘Nine-dash-line’ used by China to show the maximum extent of its claimed territorial waters:
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References:
https://www.ft.com/content/89bc954d-64ed-4d80-bb8f-9f1852ec4eb1
https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/intra-asia/apricot
https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/introducing-the-echo-subsea-cable
Echo and Bifrost: Facebook’s new subsea cables between Asia-Pacific and North America
New Southeast Asia-Japan 2 Cable to Link 9 Asian Countries
DoJ: Google to operate undersea cable connecting U.S. and Asia
New Southeast Asia-Japan 2 Cable to Link 9 Asian Countries
Google Expands Cloud Network Infrastructure via 3 New Undersea Cables & 5 New Regions
Sabotage or Accident: Was Russia or a fishing trawler responsible for Shetland Island cable cut?
Bharti Airtel and Meta extend 2Africa Pearls subsea cable system to India
Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”) and Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta” – previously Facebook) today announced a collaboration to support the growth of India’s digital ecosystem. Airtel and Meta will jointly invest in global connectivity infrastructure and Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) based new-age digital solutions to support the emerging requirements of customers and enterprises in India.
Foundational connectivity infrastructure such as subsea cable systems are crucial for supporting the rising demand for high-speed data and digital services as India prepares to roll out 5G networks later this year. With the constant endeavor to augment the nation’s infrastructure, Airtel will partner with Meta and STC to extend 2Africa Pearls to India.
2Africa is the world’s longest subsea cable system and is expected to provide faster internet connectivity to almost 3 billion people globally. Airtel and Meta will extend the cable to Airtel’s landing station in Mumbai and also pick up dedicated capacity to further strengthen its submarine network portfolio. The 2Africa cable will significantly boost India’s cable capacity and empower global hyper-scalers and businesses to build new integrated solutions and provide a high-quality seamless experience to customers.
Airtel says the 2Africa cable will significantly boost India’s cable capacity and ‘empower global hyper-scalers and businesses to build new integrated solutions and provide a high-quality seamless experience to customers.’
Facebook/Meta announced it was building out a subsea cable extension called 2Africa Pearls last year, and that it would connect Africa, Europe, and Asia. This new bit of cable brings the total length of the 2Africa system to more than 45,000 kms, which is apparently the longest subsea cable system ever deployed. The goal of the wider project is certainly ambitious – with the addition of Pearls we’re told it will provide connectivity to an additional 1.8 billion people – 3 billion in total.
As members of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Open RAN project group, Airtel and Meta have been pioneers of Open RAN technologies with the shared goal of increasing ecosystem diversity, driving innovation, and cost-efficiency in connectivity networks. Airtel has signed an agreement to help increase operational efficiency of Open RAN and facilitate energy management and automation in radio networks using advanced analytics and AI/ML models. Airtel is currently conducting trials for 4G and 5G Open RAN solutions on select sites in the state of Haryana and will commercially deploy the solution across several locations in India over the next few quarters. Airtel will share its learnings with wider ecosystem partners within the TIP community, including Meta, to help accelerate the deployment of Open RAN based networks across the world.
Businesses in India are rapidly shifting to cloud-based solutions to serve their customers digitally. Airtel IQ, the world’s first network embedded Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) ecosystem, offers cloud communication across voice, messaging and video channels to help enterprises transform their customer engagement and drive profitability by leveraging automation and boosting revenue. Airtel will integrate Meta’s WhatsApp within its CPaaS platform. With this integration, businesses will now be able to use WhatsApp’s rich features and reach to provide an unparalleled omni-channel customer engagement to enterprises.
Vani Venkatesh, CEO – Global Business, Bharti Airtel said: “We, at Airtel, are delighted to deepen our partnership with Meta to serve India’s digitally connected economy by leveraging the technology and infrastructure strengths of both companies. With our contributions to the 2Africa cable and Open RAN, we are investing in crucial and progressive connectivity infrastructure which is needed to support the increasing demand for high-speed data in India. We look forward to working closely with Meta to deliver best-in-class digital experiences to our customers in India.”
Francisco Varela, vice president of mobile partnerships for Meta said: “Subsea cables and open, disaggregated networks continue to play a huge role in the foundational infrastructure needed to support network capacity and fuel innovation. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Airtel to further advance the region’s connectivity infrastructure that will enable a better network experience for people and businesses across India.”
About Bharti Airtel:
Headquartered in India, Airtel is a global communications solutions provider with over 500 Mn customers in 17 countries across South Asia and Africa. The company ranks amongst the top three mobile operators globally and its networks cover over two billion people. Airtel is India’s largest integrated communications solutions provider and the second largest mobile operator in Africa. Airtel’s retail portfolio includes high speed 4G/5G mobile broadband, Airtel Xstream Fiber that promises speeds up to 1 Gbps with convergence across linear and on-demand entertainment, streaming services spanning music and video, digital payments and financial services. For enterprise customers, Airtel offers a gamut of solutions that includes secure connectivity, cloud and data centre services, cyber security, IoT, Ad Tech and cloud based communication. For more details, visit www.airtel.com
About Meta:
Meta builds technologies that help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality to help build the next evolution in social technology.
References:
Echo and Bifrost: Facebook’s new subsea cables between Asia-Pacific and North America
https://mobile-magazine.com/connectivity/2africa-cable-become-longest-ever-latest-expansion
Sabotage or Accident: Was Russia or a fishing trawler responsible for Shetland Island cable cut?
Most telecom professionals, analysts, and media don’t realize how dependent the world is on a limited number of fiber-optic subsea cables that form the internet’s spine and electronically link our continents and islands. Currently 95% of international internet traffic is transmitted by undersea cables. Satellites, in comparison, convey very little internet traffic.
There are still only about 200 cables around the world, each the size of a large hose pipe and capable of data transfers at about 200 terabytes per second. These cables lie on the ocean floor, while nearer to the shore they are buried under the seabed for additional protection. They carry an estimated $10 trillion worth of financial transactions every day and come together at 10 or so international chokepoints, which are particularly vulnerable.
On October 20th, the subsea cable connecting Shetland and the Faroe Islands was damaged with a separate cable linking Shetland with the Scottish mainland also being cut. BT Group, which provides communications services through the cables, said engineers had been working “flat out” to repair the damage – which had primarily impacted mobile and broadband connections.
A BT spokesperson said: “While both cable links are being repaired by subsea engineers, engineers were able to reconnect all services via a temporary solution on Thursday afternoon.”
Although the BBC attributed the Shetland subsea cable damage to a fishing trawler, there is speculation that Moscow may have been the culprit. The Financial Times (and other sources) reported that Russia’s Boris Petrov scientific research ship, was tracked in the vicinity of the Shetland Isles cables when they were cut. Since it’s designated a ‘vessel of interest’ by western navies, there’s every chance the fault could have been an example of Russia’s hybrid warfare.
The FT wrote: “The presence of a Russian underwater research ship, and the recent trio of underwater explosions that severed the Nordstream gas pipeline, make Moscow sabotage far more plausible.
Lord West, the former head of the Royal Navy, told Talk Radio: “In the Shetlands recently, where power was lost a couple of times and I’m sure it was probably a dredger or a trawler did it. “But actually there was a Russian ship of the type that can cause damage to damaged pipelines in that region. And hopefully, we are monitoring very closely making sure we’re seeing what they are doing.”
Alexander Lord, a Europe and Eurasia analyst at Sibylline told Express.co.uk: “I think in the instance of the Shetland Islands I think that’s a really interesting one to watch. Obviously, accidents do happen, and these undersea cables do occasionally get damaged by fishing trawlers, for example.
“But I think it is notable and indeed local officials have noted that it’s highly unusual that two cables were damaged in quick succession and that’s what we’ve seen this week, it is what’s caused some of the problems in Shetland. In terms of the vulnerability of European critical infrastructure, maritime assets, for example, including undersea cables will remain particularly vulnerable, undersea pipelines as well.”
The FT noted that UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wrote a paper in 2017 on the growing sabotage threat to subsea cables. From that paper: “In the digital age of cloud computing, the idea that steel and plastic pipes are integral to our life seems anachronistic,’ wrote Rishi Sunak. ‘But our ability to transmit confidential information, to conduct financial transactions and to communicate internationally all depend upon a global network of physical cables lying under the sea.’ And what if those cables are cut? The threat is nothing short of existential.”
In his 2017 paper, Sunak made several recommendations for fortifying the security of undersea cables. These included incentivising private businesses such as Google and Facebook, which own or finance much of the global cable network, to back up systems and distribute cables more widely. But nothing was done.
The UK has around 60 undersea cables. If several of these were cut or disrupted, the consequences would be disastrous. Now that Sunak is the UK PM, will he invest in protective maritime and submarine capabilities as he recommended in his 2017 paper?
This past January, Admiral Tony Radakin, the head of the British Armed Forces, observed that ‘Russia has grown the capability to put at threat those undersea cables and potentially exploit undersea cables.’ It’s now crunch time for the UK!
References:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-63337473
https://www.ft.com/content/0ddc5b48-b255-401b-8e9f-8660f4eab37b
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-threat-to-britains-undersea-cables/
C&W Networks Upgrades Pan Caribbean Submarine Cable Networks with Ciena
C&W Networks, a wholesale telecommunications service provider, announced an agreement with Ciena to upgrade its CFX-1 (Colombia-Florida Express) and EWC (East West Cable) submarine cable networks to deliver advanced broadband and IP services of up to 400Gb/s. These network upgrades will help address the soaring bandwidth needs of C&W Networks’ telco and internet service provider (ISP) customers.
C&W Networks operates the largest submarine multi-ring fiber-optic network in the greater Caribbean, Central American and Andean regions, providing reliable connectivity to approximately 40 countries. The 2400km CFX-1 express cable connects the United States, Jamaica and Colombia with less than 25ms latency, while the 1,700km EWC cable links the British Virgin Islands, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.
“Online content, especially streaming video, continues to drive robust demand for data and high-speed connectivity in the regions we serve. The additional capacity we’re turning up on CFX-1 and EWC with Ciena allows us to meet this demand head-on, enriching our service offerings for customers while sustainably and cost-effectively extending the lifespan of these cable systems,” stated Chris Coles, Vice President and General Manager, C&W Networks.
Ciena’s GeoMesh Extreme, which utilizes the 6500 Packet-Optical Platform powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optics, delivers C&W Networks’ new increased capacity with scalable service speeds on existing undersea systems. With Ciena’s latest technology, the CFX-1 cable connecting the U.S. with Colombia and Jamaica is transformed to provide a 10-fold capacity increase of over 32Tb/s with 100Gb/s–400Gb/s services.
Visibility and end-to-end management of the cable network is possible with Ciena’s Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) domain controller and Ciena Services provides deployment and reconfiguration services to accelerate time to revenue and ensure project success.
“C&W Networks’ submarine cables cross the ocean to bring the pan-Caribbean region new opportunities and economic growth through connectivity,” said Ian Clarke, Vice President of Global Submarine Solutions, Ciena. “With our GeoMesh Extreme, they’re able to do that while maximizing spectral efficiency and minimizing the cost-, space- and power-per-bit transported, resulting in lower total cost of ownership and greater competitive advantage.”
About C&W Networks
C&W Networks, part of Cable & Wireless Communications, Limited and wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Latin America, Ltd, is a wholesale telecommunications service provider that offers broadband, IP capacity to global, regional and local telecom carriers, TV cable companies, Internet Service Providers and Network Integrators. C&W Networks operates the largest subsea multi-ring fiber-optic network throughout the greater Caribbean, Central American and Andean region along with the most comprehensive fully meshed MPLS network in the region. Connecting approximately 40 markets, the company’s fully protected ringed submarine fiber optic network spans more than 50,000 km. Cable routes include the Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS-1), Colombia-Florida Express (CFX-1), EC-Link cable system, Fibralink, Maya 1, Eastern Caribbean Fiber System (ECFS), Taino-Carib, East-West Cable (EWC), Cayman-Jamaica Fiber System (CJFS), Caribbean-Bermuda U.S (CBUS), Americas II, Gemini Bermuda, Antillas 1, Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS), and Amerigo Vespucci, Alonso De Ojeda, Saba Statia Cable System (SSCS). C&W Networks also operates terrestrial networks in the US and various Caribbean and LATAM markets. For more information, please visit www.cwnetworks.com.
About Ciena
Ciena is a networking systems, services and software company. We provide solutions that help our customers create the Adaptive Network™ in response to the constantly changing demands of their end-users. By delivering best-in-class networking technology through high-touch consultative relationships, we build the world’s most agile networks with automation, openness, and scale. For updates on Ciena, follow us on Twitter @Ciena, LinkedIn, the Ciena Insights blog, or visit www.ciena.com.
References:
Google’s Equiano subsea cable lands in Namibia en route to Cape Town, South Africa
Google’s high-capacity Equiano subsea cable has landed at Swakopmund in Namibia en route to its end point at Melkbosstrand, north of Cape Town, South Africa.
The cable, which will link South Africa and Europe along Africa’s west coast, was landed in the seaside holiday town of Swakopmund late last week by landing partners Paratus Group and Telecom Namibia, which were contracted to build and operate the landing station.
Equiano is expected to be ready for commercial service in the fourth quarter of 2022 and will deliver up to 20 times the international capacity that was previously available in Namibia. Until now, Namibia has relied solely on the West Africa Cable System, or Wacs, for subsea Internet connectivity.
“This is a landmark event and a great day for Namibia’s digital transformation. We are very proud to be the Google landing partner, and infrastructure partner with Telecom Namibia, to deliver better connectivity to everyone in Namibia,” says Paratus Group CEO Barney Harmse in a statement.
“The Google Equiano cable shore landing is a major step in the development of our national telecommunications infrastructure,” said Telecom Namibia CEO Stanley Shanapinda. “The cable will ensure redundancy for Telecom Namibia and offers an alternative when other routes may be impaired.”
In South Africa, Openserve, the wholesale division of Telkom, will serve as the landing station partner for Equiano.
The company said in November 2021 that the 150Tbit/s (design capacity) Equiano system will come ashore at its landing station in Melkbosstrand, which already serves as the landing site for other submarine cables, including Sat-3, which follows a not dissimilar route to Europe as Equiano.
Openserve will offer terrestrial services connecting the Equiano cable to South African carrier-neutral data centres.
— © 2022 NewsCentral Media
References:
PLDT to support 60 Terabit/s to US and Japan with US-Transpacific Jupiter Cable
Philippine telco PLDT will activate the US-Transpacific Jupiter cable system by July this year, and is expected to further enhance delivery of services and improve customer experience.
The addition of the Jupiter cable system to PLDT’s infrastructure greatly boosts the telco’s extensive fiber network, providing greater capacity in multiple Terabits per second to customers as well as cable diversity to ensure ability to re-route traffic in the event of undersea cable cuts.
“Investments on infrastructure like Jupiter allow PLDT to provide the vital connectivity that powers our digital economy, enabling us to help transform the country into a globally competitive and digitally-empowered nation,” PLDT and Smart FVP and Head of Enterprise Business Group Jojo G. Gendrano said.
“Specifically, this will fortify the Philippines’ position as the next strategic data center hub for global hyperscalers,” Gendrano added.
PLDT’s investment in the Jupiter cable system increases and reinforces the capacities and the resiliency of the telco leader’s existing undersea fiber links, to deliver massive amounts of data traffic going in and out of the country to the US.
Jupiter uses an “open cable model,” which allows consortium members to increase their capacities as needed by investing in technologies that boost data throughput. It terminates in Maruyama and Shima, Japan; Los Angeles (Hermosa Beach) and Pacific City, USA; and Daet, the Philippines, for a total cable length of about 14,600km. It consists of 5 fiber pairs in the main trunk connecting Maruyama and Shima, Japan and Los Angeles. The Jupiter cable system was intially designed with 400Gbps DWDM, for a total system capacity of 60Tbps, or 12Tbps per fiber pair. its main trunk has been ready for service as of May 2021.
Currently the largest among Philippine telcos, Jupiter is anticipated to increase PLDT’s international capacity of 20 Terabit/s to about 60 Terabit/s to US and Japan further establishing its lead, and ready to scale with the growing demands of digital services. These include the delivery of Cloud services, Fintech, and rich media content, which seamlessly complements PLDT’s existing fixed and mobile services.
The Jupiter Cable system is a joint project of global providers spanning 14,000 kilometers from the US to the Philippines bringing PLDT’s total number of international cabling systems to 17.
Jupiter is key to enhancing PLDT’s cable network resilience, increasing the PLDT Group’s submarine cable route diversity, and helps assure customers with sustained capacity availability in support of their growing demand for data and continuing digital transformation.
Currently, PLDT operates the country’s most extensive international submarine cable network and is set to expand further with the completion of two more major international cable systems namely Asia Direct Cable (ADC), and the APRICOT cable system set to be completed in the next two years.
References:
Altice Portugal MEO signs landing party agreement for Medusa subsea cable in Lisbon
The Medusa cable system now has its landing station in Portugal confirmed. They have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Altice Portugal’s MEO [1.] for a CLS in Carcavelos near Lisbon. MEO will provide the ducts from the beach into the cable landing station as well as the necessary space, power, operations, maintenance, and connectivity on to international connection points. As currently envisioned, MEDUSA will consist of 24 fiber pairs through the Mediterranean, connecting both east to west and north to south.
Note 1. MEO is a mobile and fixed telecommunications service and brand from Altice Portugal (formerly Portugal Telecom), managed by MEO – Serviços de Comunicações e Multimédia. The service was piloted in Lisbon in 2006 and was later extended to Porto and Castelo Branco.
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“The Portuguese coast has always been strategic to generate connections, as it is the gateway to the Atlantic and West Africa,” said Norman Albi, managing director and CEO of AFR-IX telecom, the company sponsoring Medusa.
“It was decisive for Medusa that the start of its route was Portuguese and Carcavelos offers optimal conditions for this.”
The agreement was signed during the Subsea World 2022 in Marseille by Albi, managing director joined by Alexander Freese, COO of Altice Portugal.
Under the terms of the agreement, Altice Portugal (MEO) will provide landing services for the cable system, which includes ducts from the beach to the cable landing station (CLS), space and power at the CLS, operation and maintenance services, as well as connectivity between the CLS and other international connection points, namely data centres, other subsea cable stations and teleports.
“Altice Portugal, as the leader of the communications sector in Portugal, is proud to help create a gateway to Europe of such relevant assets in the communications sector as Medusa, also reinforcing its commitment to the global economy,” added Freese.
The Carcavelos landing station will serve as the western point of the 8,700+km Medusa cable system, connecting 9 countries in Africa and Europe through its landing points in Portugal, Morocco, Spain, France, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Greece, Egypt and Cyprus.
Speaking to Capacity during the event, Albi explained that the collaboration was a continuation of long-standing working partnership between the two companies.
“As AFR-IX we have a long story of collaboration with MEO Altice Portugal for many years and that will only continue,” he said.
“So, when we were looking for a landing location in Lisbon, we selected Carcavelos for many several but the main one was because of its close to data centres and has a lot of longstanding infrastructure managed by MEO Altice for many years, backed by solid know-how to manage a subsea cable.”
Freese echoed these sentiments, saying: “As Norman said, we’ve had this partnership for years, we know each other, we trust each other and we’re very happy to have been chosen as partners again for this ambitious project.”
With an investment value of €326 million, the Medusa cable, which will be built by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), will boast segments of up to 24 fibre pairs with a total design capacity of 20Tbs per fibre pair.
The benefits of landing in Lisbon are clear to Albi and the AFR-IX team, “to have Lisbon, is a gateway to the Mediterranean. All the cables that land there, either go North but also with the Medusa creates the possibility to interconnect Lisbon with Marseille, Africa etc or even to the other side of the Med through the various landing points of the system. With MEO Altice, who is the main landing operator in Lisbon, the opportunities are all there.”
“We also have some customers on the West African coast they want to reach Europe,” adds Freese. “And now we have a diverse route adding to the Lisbon gateway so they can reach places like London, Paris and Marseille or even to Barcelona, so its definitely a benefit to both of us.”
The collaboration will enable the first segment of the cable linking the cities of Cascais-Lisbon, through the Carcavelos landing station, Barcelona and Marseille to be delivered, with the cable due to reach Carcavelos in Q2 of 2024.
With permitting already underway and steps being taken to finalise this in Carcavelos, Albi says the next step is the project survey which he expects “before the end of this year” starting in Carcavelos towards the Med.
With much talk during the conference of Portugal as one of the next big subsea cable hubs, Capacity asked Freese if sees it going that way as well, he said: “we’re certainly seeing a lot of activity and new cables coming in there. Its growing a lot”, so watch this space.
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Google’s Topaz subsea cable to link Canada and Japan
The submarine cable system will be the first to link Canada directly to Asia, aiming to provide additional capacity for Google services and to a variety of network operators in Japan and Canada. The cable will be ready for service in 2023.
In August last year, reports were beginning to surface that Canada’s Shaw Communications was building a submarine cable landing station in Port Alberni, on the country’s West coast, despite no new cable systems being formally announced at the time.
It seems that Google was the chairman of this mysterious cable project, announcing the creation of the Topaz system, the first submarine cable set to link Canada directly to Asia. The Topaz cable will take a short hop from Vancouver, Canada, to Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, before travelling West across the Pacific to Japan, where it terminates at the cities of Shima and Takehagi.
In both Port Alberni and Takehagi, landing stations for the cable will need to be built from scratch. Vancouver, on the other hand, having housed the now defunct copper-based Commonwealth Pacific Cable System, built back in 1963, already has a historic landing station available for the project. This facility will be upgraded to meet the needs of the Topaz cable. The final stop, Shima, is already a major hub for submarine cable activity, with three local cable landing stations collectively connecting to around 17 subsea systems.
The Topaz system will comprise 16 fiber pairs with a total capacity of 240 Tbps. It will also make use of Wavelength Selective Switch technology, a software-defined solution that allows greater flexibility when routing traffic on individual fibre pairs.
Google says its intention with the system is not only to allow for low latency access to its own services, like Google Cloud and YouTube, but also to offer capacity for network operators in Canada and Japan.
The company also reportedly intends to swap fiber pair capacity with other submarine cable operators on similar routes, thereby increasing what the company calls “the intercontinental network lattice for network operators”.
Google’s interest and investment in submarine cable projects in recent years cannot be underestimated. The company has announced participation in 20 submarine cable projects, connecting 29 cloud regions, 88 zones, 146 network edge locations across more than 200 countries and territories.
Network infrastructure investments like Topaz bring significant economic activity to the regions where they land. For example, according to a recent Analysys Mason study, Google’s historical and future network infrastructure investments in Japan are forecasted to enable an additional $303 billion (USD) in GDP cumulatively between 2022 and 2026.
The width of a garden hose, the Topaz cable will house 16 fiber pairs, for a total capacity of 240 Terabits per second (not to be confused with TSPs). It includes support for Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS), an efficient and software-defined way to carve up the spectrum on an optical fiber pair for flexibility in routing and advanced resilience. We’re proud to bring WSS to Topaz and to see the technology is being implemented widely across the submarine cable industry.
While Topaz is the first trans-Pacific fiber cable to land on the West Coast of Canada, it’s not the first communication cable to connect to Vancouver Island. In the 1960s, the Commonwealth Pacific Cable System (COMPAC) was a copper undersea cable linking Vancouver with Honolulu (United States), Sydney (Australia), and Auckland (New Zealand), expanding high-quality international phone connectivity. Today, COMPAC is no longer in service but its legacy lives on. The original cable landing station in Vancouver — the facility where COMPAC made landfall on Canadian soil — has been upgraded to fit the needs of modern fiber optics and will house the eastern end of the Topaz cable.
Traditional and treaty rights, and local communities, are deeply important to our infrastructure projects. The Topaz cable is built alongside the traditional territories of the Hupacasath, Maa-nulth, and Tseshaht, and we have consulted with and partnered with these First Nations every step of the way.
“Tseshaht is very proud of this collaboration and our partnership with Google, who has been very respectful and thoughtful in its engagement with our Nation. That’s how we carry ourselves and that’s how we want business to carry themselves in our territory.“ — Tseshaht First Nation – Elected Chief Councillor-Ken Watts
“The five First Nations of the Maa-nulth Treaty Society are pleased that we have concluded an agreement with Google Canada and have consented to the installation of a new, high-speed fiber optic cable through our traditional territories. This agreement, in which both Google Canada and our Nations benefit, is based on respect for our constitutionally protected treaty and aboriginal rights and enhances the process of reconciliation. We would also like to acknowledge the sensitivity that Google Canada expressed during our talks in regard to the pain and trauma experienced by our people as a result of residential school experience. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Google Canada.” —Chief Charlie Cootes, President of the Maa-nulth Treaty Society
“Google’s respect towards our Nation is appreciated and has good energy behind it.” —Hupacasath First Nation – Elected Chief Councilor – Brandy Lauder
With the addition of Topaz, Google has announced investments in 20 subsea cable projects. This includes Curie, Dunant, Equiano, Firmina and Grace Hopper, and consortium cables like Blue, Echo, Havfrue and Raman — all connecting 29 cloud regions, 88 zones, 146 network edge locations across more than 200 countries and territories. Learn about Google Cloud’s network and infrastructure on our website and in the below video.
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