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Subsea Cable Updates For Africa In 2026

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*** There are persistent rumors that the four cables down in the Red Sea will be repaired this month: Falcon, EIG, IMEWE, and SMW4. This rumor puzzles me because last autumn an Israeli air strike killed the Houthi Prime Minister. Subsequently, the ongoing discussions between the Houthi government, the Omani government, and Omantel concerning a long term agreement to exempt cable repair ships from missile targeting collapsed. I am not sure what is happening. Yemen as a country has further disintegrated with UAE-backed separatists in the Hadramout and Al Mahra provinces seeking to establish a state. Yemen is now remarkably fragmented as the maps shows. *** Medusa is working hard on extending their network to the West African coast. The plan as reported by Winston Qiu is to extend the Medusa Mediterranean network to Senegal, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Gabon, Angola, and South Africa. It is supposedly a 24 fibre pair system. This would put it at the upper end of spatial d...
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The History of Subsea Cable Sabotage: The Rise of Telegraph Networks

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The Brits are credited with the first operational telegraph network in 1836. By 1855 both the US and the UK had country-wide telegraph systems. In 1851 the first successful English channel telegraph cable went live. In 1866 came the Atlantic's turn.  Telegraph quickly became essential to managing the large empires that European countries and the US were developing. It made possible quick coordination and response to geopolitical events as well as encouraging commerce and financial flows. After the Atlantic and English Channel connectivity was established, the Brits deployed a cable through the Gibraltar strait that traversed the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal, went down the Red Sea and all the way to Mumbai (known then as Bombay). The Brits extended this network all the way to Shanghai and Singapore. The British government realized that the only way to effectively maintain an far flung empire was to developed a high capacity, resilient telegraph network. Key regions included ...
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EXA's Atlantic Consolidation & Acquisition Synergies

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EXA now owns the Aqua Comms assets. These include fibre pairs on AEC-1, AEC-2, and Amitié. EXA also acquired two Irish Sea cables as part of the purchase. EXA managment emphasizes customer choice in their justification of the deal, but I think what makes it a good deal for EXA is the price. It picked up lots of fibre pairs for a total price of around $40 million. Now subsea fibre IRU purchases often range from $30 million to $60 million per pair on life of system term deals. So this is a great distressed purchase. In the same ballpark as Columbia Venture's purchase of the 360 Networks for $25 million, which was rebranded as Hibernia Atlantic. I think the main question I would pose to EXA's operational staff is whether they can generate cost savings. Operational synergies are important to judging the success of an acquisition. This is where companies often fail in their consolidation efforts. GTT went bankrupt in 2021 after rapidly buying lots of network assets i...
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Amazon As LEO Capacity Wholesaler

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The author argues that the stodgy business community is underestimating Amazon's threat to Starlink. Amazon is developing a wholesale model for LEO capacity that dovetails perfectly with its terrestrial network superiority over Starlink. At this point Starlink is pretty much everyone's enemy: "While Starlink also offers business tiers, its ambition to become a global consumer telco makes it a threat to carriers. For a company like Verizon or AT&T, Starlink is a frenemy: a partner today, a predator tomorrow." In contrast, Amazon wants to be everyone's friend. Amazon's dedicated 1 gigabit Ultra terminal will be sold to carriers that will deliver Internet to the premise via 5G connections. In rural Michigan I encountered households whose home routers were linked to the Internet via 5G mobile frequencies. Mobile carriers have found 5G demand to be very weak. Hence their spectrum is underutilized. Here's the solution. Amazon realizes that succ...
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TAT-1 Vacuum Tube: First TransAtlantic Deep Sea Signal Regenerator

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TAT-1 was the first Trans-Atlantic cable intended to carry voice traffic. Up to that point the only telephony across the ocean was short wave radio. These first generation vacuum tubes regenerated the electrical signals used for communication. These vacuum tubes could only regenerate in one direction. Hence TAT-1 was a two cable system. The vacuum tubes were amazingly reliable with none of the 51 repeaters on each of the two cables comprising TAT-1 failing during its long operational life span. The cable introduced two other innovations, namely polyethylene to protect the cable and a coaxial cable design. Polyethylene replaced gutta-perch, a tree rubber product.  
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The Starlink Financial Mystery: Caveats Concerning Its Profitability

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Let's be clear. LEO satellite service is an unproven business model. Obviously, if prices are high enough or the service is a monopoly, it will work. But no complete financial picture is public at this point. This is why the planned 2026 IPO is so interesting. The prospectus will reveal enough to make an informed judgment. But despite stubborn optimism to the contrary, there is no strong evidence that LEO Internet is highly profitable. I doubt even Starlink investors have the company's complete financial details except for a few high profile venture capitalists. Starlink does release an annual report. It is best characterized as a slick marketing pitch designed to give the impression that Starlink is an unstoppable juggernaut that reflects historical inevitability. All Bow to Caesar. What are the missing details? 1. Depreciation. 2. Customer acquisition costs. 3. Operating expenses. 4. Capital replacement costs. Depreciation is important because LEOs are like...
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EXA Consolidation & Acquisition Synergies

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EXA now owns the Aqua Comm assets. These include fibre pairs on AEC-1, AEC-2, and Amitié. EXA also acquired two Irish Sea cables as part of the purchase. EXA managment emphasizes customer choice in their justification of the deal, but I think what makes it a good deal for EXA is price. It picked up lots of fibre pairs for a total price of around $40 million. Now subsea fibre IRU purchases often range from $30 million to $60 million per pair on life of system term deals. So this is a great distressed purchase. In the same ballpark as Columbia Venture's purchase of the 360 Networks for $25 million, which was rebranded as Hibernia Atlantic. I think the main question I would have for EXA's operational staff is whether they can generate cost savings. Operational synergies are important to judging the success of an acquisition. This is where companies often fail in their consolidation efforts. GTT went bankrupt in 2021 after rapidly buying lots of network assets including Interoute, ...
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