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Thoughts On The State of African Subsea Networks: Sénégal, Ghana, Ivory Coast

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1. The Gate to Hell in Dante's Inferno has an inscription stating "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here". I think he was actually referring to the Senegal telecommunications market. My conversations with African carriers and Tier 2 ISPs suggest that entering the market is extremely difficult. Much more than Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria or South Africa. Only the Sonatel/Orange joint venture (cartel?) has managed to secure a gateway license for 2Africa capacity. This is the consequence of the pernicious and incestuous relationship between Senegal's government and the de facto Sonatel monopoly.  Developing a country is best accomplished via competition with low barriers to entry, not government sanctioned monopolies with a good dose of under-the-table brown bags stuffed full of Euros and US dollars.  The Senegal government is spending a huge amount on the Numerique data center and other digital projects, but they will not live up to their promise unless transport prices mat...
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Diverse 100G Waves Marseille/Singapore: AAE1 & Peace

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AAE1; $21.5K MRC; Two Year Term. Peace; $17.5K MRC; One Year Term. A points: MRS2. Z points: SG1/SG3. Customer responsible for cross connects.
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Topaz 10G Waves Available - Pricing By Request

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Google's Topaz cable offers exceptional physical diversity due to its unique Vancouver, BC and Japanese landings. It is also one of the shortest paths from the Tokyo financial exchanges to Seattle, Chicago, and the CME data centre. A point: CC1, TY4. Z points: Cologix VAN4, Vancouver. Also Equinix at 350 East Cermak, Chicago, and Digital Realty, Westin Building, Seatle. Service: Standard Layer 1 10G waves. OTN. Terms: 1, 2 & 3 Years.
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The TGN Pacific Cable - A Hidden Gem

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In the late 90s Tyco Electronics (TE) purchased AT&T's subsea cable laying division. Stock prices of new fibre optic networks were soaring and priced at multiples similar to American Tech Giants today. So TE built a global subsea network, Tyco Global Network (TGN), to sell wholesale capacity. By the time it was completed in 2003, bandwidth pricing had collapsed. It was clear that the billions spent on TGN would never be recouped. By 2005, TATA, then known as VSNL, scooped it up for $130 million in one of the great contrarian investments in the telecom industry (Hibernia Atlantic's purchase in 2001 is another example). TATA got a lot. It included two Atlantic cables structured as a ring, dual cables linking India to Marseille and to Singapore plus a number of Pacific cables. TGN Pacific was one of those distressed assets. TGN Pacific was designed like most cables of that era to be self healing. Today most customers provide their own route protection via routers or switches....
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Great Marseille/Singapore 100G AAE1 Pricing: $21.5K MRC

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Great Marseille/Singapore 100G AAE1 Pricing: $21.5K MRC A point: MRS2. Z point: SG3. Term: 1 Year. Service: Layer 1 100G Wave. NRC: $0. Estimated Latency: 135 ms RTD. Customer responsible for cross connects. Delivery: Four weeks from customer signature.
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10G Pacific Capacity Deals: Tokyo/Secaucus Equinix & Tokyo/LA

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A point: Most Tokyo Equinix sites. Also CC1 & Osaka Equinix. Z point: San Jose Equinix, LA Coresite 2. Service: 10G Wave. Layer 1. Term: 2 years. MRC: $5250. NRC: $2500. Customer responsible for cross connects. Cable: Juno. Remarks: Diverse back haul to both LA & San Jose. A point: TY5. Z point: Secaucus Equinix. Service: 10G wave. Layer 1. Term: 3 Years Latency: 163 ms RTD. MRC: $8500. Customer responsible for cross connects. Cable: No outages in the last two years. Note: Ideal for financial trading.
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The New AUG (Asia United Gateway) East Cable

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Singtel is leading a consortium of Asian carriers and American tech giants that will finance a new intra-asian cable connecting Japan, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea. Details are sparse. Press releases say it will be a high fibre count network. My guess is at least 12 pairs and as much as 24. Two core fibre is also a possibility given NEC's participation. What is striking is that SJC2 and ADC just went in service with Apricot also expected to be RFS this year, yet here is another cable with a similar Southeast Asian footprint under development. This suggests to me that traffic is growing faster than anticipated with the carriers under pressure to catch up to the rapidly growing market. The other notable feature is the absence of any landings in Hong Kong or mainland China. Since China has emerged as the regional bully, the cable's name is probably not a coincidence. Consortium members include Singtel, Amazon, Micro...
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