SAEx has signed an agreement with Alcatel Submarine Networks to commence desktop study, permitting and survey activities for a new 25,000km submarine network cable linking Asia, South Africa, and America.

This project aims to provide capacity and redundancy for bandwidth-hungry markets around the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

SAEx said this cable system will have an overall capacity of up to 108Tbps, and will comprise two key phases – the connection of South Africa with Brazil and the United States, and the connection of South Africa to India and Singapore.

The network will be ready for service in the first half of 2021 and will provide a significant increase in connectivity to Africa, SAEx said.

“SAEx will support efficiency in Asian and African connectivity by adding a direct, low-latency route that’s able to address the growing capacity requirements for data centre interconnect globally,” said SAEx managing director Rosalind Thomas.

“Additionally, it will further evolve South Africa’s positioning as a global hub, providing a direct link between the Americas and Asia, simplifying and enhancing communications between the five most populous countries in the world.”

Alcatel Submarine Networks will deliver the full project as a selected system vendor, and SAEx will use the latest fibre technologies available in the deployment of the system.

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