Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

***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.

When you come to Europe, you go to Amsterdam. It's inevitable. Amsterdam is one of Europe's two main Internet hub, the other being Frankfurt. Also the city is a major logistics hub that is a good hunting ground for commercial telecom deals. 1. AM5 is one of the best data centers for Internet peering, but has no power for new clients or upgrades for existing ones. Novation is your best bet.  2. AM3, Nikhef, and AMS17 do have power.  3. Nikhef is the best deal for smaller players because there are no recurring cross connects fees, power is available, and fractional racks have no install charges. Peering opportunities are excellent with both AMS-IX & NL-IX present. Excellent site for both private ISPs and financial trading firms.  4. NorthC's two Amsterdam facilities have plentiful space to lease. Not a lot of connectivity providers yet, but could prove highly attractive to the server intensive crowd which needs a lot of racks and power.  5. Relined is highly reco...

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. 😃 

Advice For Buyers Very little SWM5 and AAE1 capacity on the key Marseille/Singapore route. Moreover, the Peace Cable is still 4 months away, and SWM6 at least 6 months out. Blue-Raman's Marseille/Mumbai segment is scheduled to go live November, 2025.  Plenty of Equiano capacity   so now is the time to grab it over the next 6 months. I know several vendors holding 500Gs to multiple terabits ready to cut a deal.  European wavelengths have never been cheaper. It is now possible to build a basic 100G European backbone that includes 10x 100G waves for 10K Euros or less per month. So now is the time for African ISPs to expand their networks into Europe to peer and buy better transit. I have intimate knowledge of pricing, latency, resiliency, and physical diversity options across the major long haul European providers. My expertise will save a lot of time as well as avoid costly mistakes.  The badass 240 terabit per second Firmina cable is coming to South America and it wi...

This post summarizes many of the key concerns you must keep in mind when in purchasing 2africa capacity. Obviously, the more capacity a vendor has, the lower it can go on price.  In the major telecom hubs like South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria, 2Africa providers typically have fibre to at least one carrier neutral data centre or the CLS itself is in a telecom hotel.  So the minefield of the opportunistic African cable landing station operator can be avoided. Indeed, in many of those countries the CLS itself is really just a cage or a room in a carrier neutral data center just like the Equiano CLS in the Open Access Data Centre in Lagos.  Buyers must be much more careful in the secondary markets. In some of those markets the 2Africa cable has no back haul to telecom hotels and the CLS is revamping itself or portraying itself as a carrier neutral site in accordance with the 2Africa consortium's open cable model. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating as the English sa...