Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

Marseille was formerly a telecom backwater. It was a minor POP location. But then several things happened. The UK lost its super telecom hub status because it had become almost a single point of failure. Virtually every Atlantic cable linking the two continents landed in Cornwall, England. Secondly, Brexit meant that the UK was no longer part of Europe proper, but rather a political anomaly on its periphery. Thirdly, the Digital Titans recognized that most Asian-Europe traffic Asia was bound for the European continent. Latency could be sharply reduced by going up the Red Sea, across Egypt, and then traverse the Mediterranean to Southern European landings. Finally, traffic originating in Asia and destined for Europe was growing rapidly. So the bureaucrats of the Port Authority of Marseille built segregated landing facilities and sea lanes. Permit application process was streamlined so only one office was involved. Secure facilities were set up for power feeds. By the end of 2026, 16 cab

Lisbon/Lagos is 77 ms RTD. My best estimate to date.  Shortest latency of all subsea cables between Lisbon and South Africa: 130 ms RTD. Also the most reliable and least expensive. Equiano lands not just in Portugal, Nigeria, and South Africa, but also Togo and Namibia. Any sufficiently large ISP in those four African countries should be on the system. Feel free to ping me for a quote. ☺ Deepest buried African subsea cable: averages 2 meters.

The wholesale telecom community eagerly anticipates the lighting of the ADC system. This 8 fibre pair cable has an intitial design capacity of 180 Tbps. It will serve China, Japan, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. NEC is building the cable. Consortium members include China Unicom, China Telecom, Singtel, Softbank, Tata, and one of the two Vietnam operator incumbents.  My sources tell me the current RFS estimate is January, 2025.  Good Singapore/Tokyo pricing available. Figure as low as $15K per monthon long term contracts.  SJC and SJC2 are relatively good complements as they do not share cable landing stations with ADC.  HK-SG 35.5 ms RTD. SG-TOKYO 66.5 ms RTD.  TOKYO-HK 44.5 ms RTD.  Singapore Landing Station: Tuas. Tokyo Landing Station: Maruyama.