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2Africa Procurement Tips - Part 2

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***It is worth emphasizing that the DRC 2Africa CLS is a carrier neutral facility where all clients are treated equally with non-discriminatory and cost-based pricing and consortium-imposed performance standards. Moreover, there are several diverse fibre routes from the CLS to Kinshasa, which has several new carrier neutral data centers. The DRC market could be particularly interesting as it traditionally been a hell hole for telecom carriers. This means wholesale ISPs can sell at high transit prices. ***The other Congo (Brazzaville) is also on-net for 2Africa. And I can get you fibre transport across the river at wholesale prices to the DRC. 🙂 ***Special Note: ACR2, a Digital Realty data center in Accra, Ghana, is where most 2Africa capacity carriers keep their SLTEs.

2Africa Procurement Tips (Updated Due To New Information) - Part 1

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***Senegal is the one of the most challenging on-net 2Africa countries. 1. Sonatel appears to have a monopoly on Dakar metro fibre. This spells trouble. 2. Sonatel's landline infrastructure monopoly may be one reason many 2Africa consortium members declined capacity into Senegal, despite its strategic location as the natural Northwest Africa telecom hub. Another reason might be their lack of mobile operations in that country as Senegal is a small market. 3. ONIX data center is the place to be in Senegal. Carrier neutral and on-net for 2Africa. Most African ISPs coming to me for advice plan to make ONIX their home. 4. I expect 100G pricing to be high due to the dearth of capacity. Figure low 30s for 100Gs to Europe and upper 20s for 100Gs to West African countries. ***Ghana is much friendlier. Many 2Africa carriers are on-net at the CLS and also the very popular PAIX data center. In fact, I know one that has built a ring from the CLS to PAIX reflecting strong demand for the latter. ...

Improving Resiliency In Wake of the Iberian Peninsula Blackout: 2Africa, ACE, ...

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First Point: The Portugal and Spanish grids are tightly integrated with limited power connector to the rest of Europe. Solar and wind play a big role and both power sources suffer from what is known as frequency instability. Solar and wind generated power is much more volatile than traditional power sources. Traditional power generators have angular momentum inertia. It takes a while to up or lower the power due to the inertia in the spinning components. A natural gas turbine takes a few minutes to spin up. A nuclear reactor an hour to lower or increase output by 10% (French reactors do load following). Solar and wind create very volatile power fluctuations that can easily trigger a circuit breaker. In an isolated grid if a circuit breaker is triggered, the power in the remaining active part of the grid increases. This triggers more circuit breakers and usually brings down the entire grid. 2. The consequence of the first point is that avoiding a repeat of the Iberian Penisula outage re...

US Military Strikes Against Houthis: More Delays For 2Africa, Africa-1, Etc.

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What most people don't realize is that the following cables have not threaded the Red Sea yet due to the threat of Houthi missile attacks: 1. 2Africa. 2. Africa-1. 3. Blue Raman. 4. IEX. 5. SWM6. It is likely that none of these cables go live this year (2Africa Marseille/Mombasa segment among others ). When I ask industry insiders whether the Red Sea segments for these cables are finished, I get the roar of silence. The impending capacity drought reflects the failure of subsea cable designers and senior carrier management to take seriously their over-reliance on the Red Sea. Even Blue-Raman, which bypasses Egypt, traverses the Red Sea before landing near the Jordanian Aqaba data center. It is time for the telecom industry to work with Saudi Arabia to build routes that completely bypass the Red Sea and hit water on Israel's coast. Even it means neglecting Djibouti. Carrier culture is not innovative. Never has been. Technology comes from the network vendors like Ciena or Infinera...

Ooredoo: Up & Coming Subsea Cable Player

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Ooredoo operates mobile operations in ten countries with 2024 annual revenues of $6.5 billion. It has mobile subsidiaries in Algeria, Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Maldives, Oman, Palestine, and Qatar. The carrier reminds me of Vodafone, which entered the subsea cable market to cost effectively transport its international traffic. Led by Rick Perry, head of subsea network development, Vodafone owns capacity on many cables, and in fact, is a lead landing partner for 2Africa. Similarly, Ooredoo is entering the subsea market. It is the 2Africa landing partner for Oman, which must be extremely annoying for Omantel. Ooredoo is hosting a new CLS in Barka for 2Africa and also one in Salalah. Due to 2Africa's strict rules limiting predatory cross connect pricing, I expect Oman to become a leading Middle Eastern telecom hub. Right now Dubai is a telecom hell hole due to the mandatory cross connect fees that the two incumbents, Etisalat and Du, receive. It creates artificially high bandwidth pric...

East Africa 10G Wave Specials: Calling All African ISPs Fighting the Good Fight

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Mombasa/Dar es Salaam; $15,100; 1 Year; 2Africa. Mombasa/Djibouti; $15,100; 1 Year; 2Africa. Mombasa/Amanzimtoti; $18,100; 1 Year; 2Africa. Capetown/Amanzimtoti; $10,900; 1 Year; 2Africa.

Tidings of Good News: Africa-1 Cable Deployment In Middle East

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The Africa-1 cable is landing today in Duba, Saudi Arabia, a small port city, where a new CLS awaits it. Right now East African countries are suffering severe subsea cable capacity shortages that have driven 100G prices between Kenya and South Africa into the $40K to $65K per month range. Same for Kenya to Marseille. Only Seacom, 2Africa and Eassy link together the key East African counties. Seacom is a low capacity 2000 era system with chromatic dispersion fibre. Just a couple terabits per second. Eassy has more capacity at 36 Tbps, but both cables are in any case almost completely maxed out. 2Africa has huge capacity with an initial design throughput of 180 Tbps, but it is not connected to Europe via the Red Sea due to the recent Houthi hostilities. The only nearby telecom hub is South Africa. However, much of the East African traffic is ultimately destined for Europe. Hence the delays in lighting the Marseille/Mombasa 2Africa segment which would relieve the network congestion are th...

Friday Bandwidth Advice: India

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Might close my first 100G into India today. 🙂 I recommend focusing for the next six months on the India/Singapore roiute as Red Sea construction of IEX, 2Africa, and SWM6 is on hold due to the possibility of missile strikes. In contrast, IAX and Mist do not face these issues. I understand that both Marseille and Singapore are essential peering points, but Marseille/Mumbai is likely to be hell for the foreseeable future. Put your incremental effort where it earns the greatest incremental return. Today is it is Mumbai or Chennai to Singapore. I am always available to provide your advice and guidance on your hunt for a Great Deal. 😃 

Houthi Rebels Endangering Subsea Projects Including SWM6 & 2Africa

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As you know, the Rubymar dragged its anchor for 31 kilometers after its crew abandoned it last spring. In so doing it severed the AAE1, Seacom/TGN, and Eassy cables. After several months stalemate, the Houthi rebels gave the consortiums permission to repair them as long as it was done in a low key fashion. The fact that AAE1 lands in Yemen gave the Houthis political cover with their supporters. But the reality is that since then the Houthis have refused to agree to refrain from targeting cable ships laying new systems like 2Africa, Blue-Raman, and SWM6. This is why these projects are currently well behind schedule. There is no way to complete them in the near future as designed. Probably the only way forward right now would be build terrestrially along side the Red Sea through Saudi Arabia. In other words, bypass that part of the Red Sea adjacnet to Yemen. For example, Oman could hand off Blue-Raman traffic to Saudi Arabia which could take it across the desert and essentially bypass th...

Lagos Subsea Cable Update

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With the exception of 2Africa, which has two landings one of which is 500 kilometers South of Lagos, all Nigerian landings are along a 25 kilometer wide beach in an area called Lekki. I expect 2Africa and Equiano to dominate the transport market going forward with 2Africa finally live in February or early March. At that point I expect combined capacity of these two modern cables to push prices into the teens for 100G waves. The older subsea cables like WACS, ACE, MainOne, SAT3, and GLO-1 will struggle to compete because their per bit costs are much higher. These older cables have far less capacity, but similar operating expenses similar to 2Africa or Equiano. For example, the older cables probably pay as much if not more for maintenance given their higher fault frequency. They are more likely to experience outages due to shallower burial and riskier routing through the blue ocean than either Equiano or 2Africa. Inferior service, higher costs. Not a recipe for success.  Unlike thei...

Important News For Network Capacity Buyers: 2Africa, Blue-Raman, ODUflex Protocol

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 1. The West African 2Africa cable segment extending from South Africa to Portugal should be live late February or early March. Excellent opportunity to diversify your network while reducing overall costs. Unfortunately, not clear when the Kenya/Marseille route via the Red Sea will be ready. Many buyers are currently riding Equiano single threaded or pairing it up with older, much more expensive and outage-prone cables like WACS, MainOne or Glo-1. Between Lisbon/Lagos, Lagos/SA, and Lisbon/SA, 2Africa 100Gs should vary from the upper teens to lower twenties per month on 3 year contracts. Like Equiano, 2Africa is buried deeper than the legacy subsea networks while avoiding the danger spots like the Congo Canyon or its Ivory Coast counterpart, Le Trou Sans Fin. For countries like Ivory Coast I expect carriers to initially hold the line at $35K MRC on 3 year deals, but I expect pricing discipline will disintegrate with pricing headed into the mid-twenties.  There is no reason to ...

Trieste: A Candidate Telecom Subsea Cable Hub

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Several data centre companies have asked for my thoughts on potential data centre sites that could exploit nearby subsea cable landings. Obviously there is a need for a new data centre in Marseille diverse to the Interxion sites. In fact, Telehouse Europe has such a plan, already has purchased a plot of land, and has LOIs from long haul carriers to bring it online. Quadrivium is retrofitting a former corporate data facility in Genoa to leverage 2Africa, Blue Raman, and the other cables that call it their home.  Trieste is my nomination for a future cable landing station and Internet gateway. The city has a large port that could easily accommodate subsea cables. Furthermore, the latency of an intercontinental subsea network landing in Trieste and delivering traffic to Milano, Zurich, Vienna, and Frankfurt is definitely lower than routing via Marseille and even Genoa. So Trieste offers diversity without a latency penalty for central Europe and Scandinavia.  Trieste was a great p...

An Emerging Subsea Telecom Hub: Genoa

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Marseille with its 16 cables tightly squeezed into reserved sea lanes and landing facilities violates the cardinal rule of network diversity. It's highly efficient, but resiliency requires physical diversity. In general, resiliency costs money because it requires not relying solely on the big interconnection points. Indeed, there is a fundamental conflict between minimizing network costs and maximizing performance. This has led consortiums and the digital titans to seek other landing points to reduce Marseille's importance. Besides being a long distance from Marseille and on a separate power grid, Genoa offers lower latency access to Italy's eyeballs as well as Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe. The city offers clear advantages for a landing spot.  On the down side, landing cables at Genoa is more challenging than Marseille because cables must traverse more shallow waters to reach it. Cables must be threaded between Sardinia, Corsica, and Italy....

Subsea Cable News - SMW6, Mist, 2Africa

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Mist delayed due to hard rock at Indian CLS. Construction teams find the rock between the CLS and the beach manhole is too hard for directional drilling. A new path around the rock is required.  SMW6 will only go live in 2026.  APG down 12 months since start of 2023. Cursed cable.  2Africa struggling due to delays in the Northeastern Africa quadrant.  Bifrost behind schedule. Ground breaking on the Jakarta CLS was just in June and just a few days ago for the second CLS. Figure late 2025.  Peace cable is cheap in part because 40% of potential customers will not use it because Chinese companies built and equipped it. . Equiano 10G prices are relatively high because many carriers only offering 100G. There is a dearth of 10G providers.  Anjana and Firmina on schedule because neither cable is a consortium. Consortiums are too slow and make mediocre decisions.  Bay of Bengal Gateway capacity is low and prices rising.  2Africa 100G pr...

Self Inflicted African Telecom Wounds

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I learned this morning that several countries including Guinea declined 2Africa membership because they rejected the open cable model. Despite a 2Africa branching unit just outside Guinea territorial waters. In other words, the Guinea government wanted to control the cable landing station. The current regime practices soft censorship by threatening journalists and media outlets that criticize the government and imposing high fines for slander against the State.  Apparently it views widespread Internet access as a threat to its existence. This is reflected in only 765 fixed broadband connections in a country of 14 million. My guess is that this explains why other African states also declined to connect to 2Africa.  Who are the other holdouts? This is sheer speculation on my part, but I find it strange that Cameroon did not participate in either Equiano or 2Africa. Its PTT may have feared increased competition in its home market due to the open cable landing model which would ha...

Thursday Wrap Up On the Subsea Markets

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1. Capacity Shortages Abound ... A. Marseille/Singapore route remains tight due to limited SWM5 and AAE1 spare capacity. Impact of Peace Cable is not clear..  B. The 2Africa cable appears delayed a few months and it is a blow to East African ISPs looking for relief from limited capacity and high prices. The 100G prices even on the active Kenya/SA 2Africa segment lie in the $50K to $80K MRC range due to Seacom and Eassy cable depletion. 2. The 100G prices for the NYC and Ashburn Equinix to Fortaleza and Sao Paulo routes range from $7K to $12K per month. 3. A new West African cable is desperately needed to rescue those left behind after the Equiano and 2Africa Raptures: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Bissau, Gambia, and others like Cameroon and Angola. I think there is a chance that Cameroon did not join the 2Africa consortium due to objections to the open cable landing stations. 4. Curie cable connecting LA to South America is really expensive. Overpriced. 5. I expect two new Trans-...

Equiano and 2Africa Updates

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Odds and Ends: Monday Update on Blue-Raman, 2Africa, and Equiano

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1. The last 2Africa splice should happen in December and the cable is likely to be fully live April, 2025. Not surprising given this is the most complicated submarine cable project ever undertaken with over 40 landings and many new cable landing stations. Right now only the Kenya to South Africa segment is live.  2. Blue-Raman is farther out than many Blue-Raman providers are willing to admit. Not 2nd quarter next year. But year's end for the all-important Marseille/Mumbai segment. Don't be fooled. Salesmen are Liars. 😀 Except for me, of course. 😊 3. I can sell you 5x 100Gs on any of the three Equiano segments today and three months down the road will have 25x 100Gs available on the Equiano cable. Plus I have affordable local loops from Lagos OADC to the other two key Lagos data centers. Moreover, the metro fibre is amplified which is important for ensuring acceptable 400G and 800G wave performance. Most Lagos 

Subsea Cable News Update: 2Africa & Blue-Raman

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 ***Well informed sources tell me that Blue-Raman is unlikely to go live before November 2025. My suspicion is that this is due to the terrestrial fibre builds across the Saudi Arabian desert as well as Jordan and Israel.  ***The 2Africa cable consortium controls its cable landing stations. So CLS operators are essentially employees. Not Masters of the Universe like in most previous African projects. 😀 In fact, the consortium financed many of the new 2Africa landing stations. And furthermore, not only are cross connect and back haul charges capped, but there are performance standards imposed on operators in terms of delivering power, space, cross connects, and anything else that affects circuit delivery or performance. Below is the 2Africa cable landing in Nigeria. 

The December 2006 Taiwan Earthquake: 11 Subsea Cable Outages

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