Two new subsea cable projects to boost South Asia capacity

IOX subsea cable
Image credit: Seaborn

South Asia is set to gain more subsea cable capacity via two new projects – one connecting the US and India via South Africa and Brazil, and another connecting Pakistan and East Africa.

The first is the product of a joint provisioning agreement by Seaborn Networks and IOX Cable, with the aim of creating a unique subsea path connecting the US with three BRICS countries and Mauritius. The result will be fewer hops through fewer countries than existing alternative routes.

The planned cable system will combine Seaborn’s existing Seabras-1 cable connecting New York-São Paulo with three other cable systems in the works – ARBR (connecting Brazil and Argentina, scheduled to be ready for service in Q4 2018); SABR (connecting Seabras-1 to Cape Town sometime in 2019); and the IOX Cable System interconnecting South Africa, Mauritius and India (also due for launch in 2019).

Seaborn is building ARBR and SABR. SABR and the IOX System will interconnect in South Africa.

Separately, Huawei Marine announced it has commenced work on Desk Study and Marine Survey works in conjunction with key investor Tropic Science to construct the Pakistan East Africa Cable Express (PEACE) submarine cable, which connects South Asia with East Africa.

With initial work underway, the project is targeted for completion in Q4 2019.

The PEACE cable will span 13,000 km, connecting Pakistan, Djibouti and Kenya, with a northern expansion to Egypt and further southern expansion from Kenya to South Africa.

The project will facilitate connectivity from China to Pakistan via existing terrestrial cable networks and create the shortest route from China to Europe via Africa, reducing network lengths by up to 50%, says Huawei.

peace subsea cable
Image credit: Huawei

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