Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s first privately owned submarine cable operator, and Tinet, a global carrier exclusively committed to the IP and Ethernet wholesale markets, have announced that the companies have entered into a partnership agreement that will extend Tinet’s international connectivity into the ME region and allow GBI to offer more services throughout Europe. The partners will also benefit from one another’s extended network and service offerings.

New Submarine Cable Systems

SEAS Contract Awarded to Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent has announced that it has signed a contract worth more than US$30 million with Seychelles Cable System (SCS) to build the Seychelles East Africa System (SEAS) linking Victoria in Seychelles, to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

UNIFI Communications, a leading US-based international carrier, and Alcatel-Lucent, a leading provider of end-to-end undersea cable systems today announced the signature of the Balkans-Italy Network (BIN) Phase 1 Supply Contract.  Alcatel-Lucent will provide turn-key implementation of Albania’s first private undersea fiber optic cable system, which will connect Tirana, Albania to Bari, Italy. The network is expected to begin providing service by the end of 2011.

Alcatel-Lucent has announced that it has been selected by eFive Telecoms, a South African telecommunications company, to build a new submarine cable network linking the west coast of Africa to South America. The system will be composed of two trunks -- the first one connecting South Africa to Angola and Nigeria, and the second trunk linking Angola to Brazil. This end-to-end project will further increase connectivity in Africa, deliver additional capacity for wholesale and will also enhance service and traffic protection by providing critical cable route diversity to South America.

Since the beginning of the submarine fiber optic cable era in the late 1980s, developing countries with limited finances and small populations could not justify the investment in submarine cables.  That has changed in recent years as the growth of the Internet makes reliable, high-speed access vital for economic development and the general well being of the population.  Three recent examples demonstrate how developing small market countries are now embracing submarine cables.

We reported last week that Indian telecommunications giant Bharti Airtel’s acquisition of Telecom Seychelles Limited, the leading telecom operator of Seychelles (see Submarine Cable World NewsFeed for August 13, 2010), might finally push the build of a long-discussed submarine fiber optic cable to the island nation.

Jose Rafael Vargas, the president of the Dominican Republic’s telecommunications regulator, Institute of Telecommunications (Indotel), has announced that the installation of a planned submarine fiber optic cable system will triple the country’s bandwidth and help reduce interconnection costs and, therefore, telephone and Internet rates in the Dominican Republic.

In a separate but related announcement, Bharti Airtel said that its Board of Directors has approved the acquisition of 100 % of Telecom Seychelles Limited, the leading telecom operator of Seychelles, for an enterprise value of US$62 million.

An Indian carrier that is rapidly becoming a global operator plans to expand its submarine cable offerings globally to target business opportunities in over 100 countries by 2013.

We have noted in past issues that with Internet demand booming, international carriers are racing to keep up.  Capacity sale announcements are being made on a regular basis and existing submarine cables are being upgraded to add badly needed capacity.

India's Bharti Airtel and 15 other global telecom companies, including British Telecom, Etisalat, Saudi Telecom, MTN International Group and Telkom South Africa, have together launched the 10,000 kilometer East African Submarine System (EASSy) to connect East Africa with the rest of the world via the submarine fiber optic cable.

Neotel, South Africa’s first converged communications network operator, is hosting the Eastern African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) Management Committee in Johannesburg. This meeting represents an important milestone for EASSy, which was recently completed, and will be brought into commercial service during August 2010.

Three West African telecom carriers have taken capacity on the new Main One West African submarine fiber optic cable system, launched last month.

With last month’s launching of the Main One West African submarine fiber optic cable system, Germany’s Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (DEG) issued a statement on the project and DEG’s participation.

The East African Submarine System (EASSy) went live recently, bringing with it a large amount of new Internet capacity, as well as lower prices, according to its owner.

Pacnet and Pacific Fibre Limited have announced plans to jointly build the Pacific Fibre cable, a city-to-city, low-latency subsea fiber optic cable that will boost connectivity between Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency recently announced that a South Korean consortium has won a one-billion dollar deal from Saudi Arabia’s Integrated Telecom Company (ITC) to lay fiber optic cables in Saudi Arabia.  The project is to set up a national network in Saudi Arabia and also to connect the country with Sudan, Yemen, Oman and the United Arab Emirates by undersea cable by December 2013, the agency said.

Efforts continue to link the small islands of the South Pacific to the global submarine fiber optic network to promote economic development and provide vital broadband services in the region.

Although there has been an explosion of submarine fiber optic cable investment in Africa, resulting in five major new cable systems entering service in the past year, new projects continue to be proposed.

Africa has seen a period of unparalleled deployment of its international submarine cable infrastructure in the past year.  Since August 2009, five large scale submarine fiber optic cable projects have been completed.  Considering that the development of these projects began just as the submarine cable industry was beginning to emerge from its worst ever drought period (2002-2004), African cable building went a long way to bring the industry out of the drought and into a boom period.

Seven months after commencing cable installation and following a comprehensive program of testing, West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) has announced the opening of a 1.4 Terabit per second, 10,000 km fiber-optic submarine cable system along the east coast of Africa – from South Africa to Sudan, and with onward connection to global markets.

There has been an explosion in submarine fiber optic cable systems serving Africa in the past year, beginning with SEACOM in August 2009 and shortly followed by TEAMS – the first such cables to serve Sub-Saharan East Africa.  The cable boom is continuing, with Main One entering service at the beginning of this month and two new cables that may come online this week.

The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) has released a statement celebrating the announcement that Uhurunet, NEPAD’s plan for a new submarine cable system to serve Africa, would move ahead.

The Suriname-Guyana Submarine Cable System (S-GSCS) will be formally launched this week at the July 11-15 meeting of the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunications Organizations, which is being held in Curacao.

Within the past year, an explosion in submarine fiber optic cables serving Sub-Saharan Africa has occurred.  Three new cable systems have entered service, serving the subcontinent that previously was dependent on satellites and a single cable.  Now another new system is poised to come online.

The Chairperson of the Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA), Angelique Weeks, has been appointed as Vice Chairperson of the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) Consortium Management Committee.

Main One has announced that its 1,920 Gbps, 7,000 kilometer long, submarine fiber optic cable system linking West Africa to Europe has been completed and commissioned. With landing stations in Nigeria and Ghana and branching units in Morocco, Canary Islands, Senegal and Ivory Coast, the cable will deliver unprecedented broadband capacity to West Africa, more than ten times what is currently available in the region. With its cable system now in operation, Main One is poised to champion a broadband communications revolution in Africa, the company said in a statement. This will positively impact businesses, governments and individuals by providing higher bandwidth and exceptional speeds at a lower cost. The ramifications of Main One’s cable will be felt in all sectors: from education, through to health and entertainment, helping to driving economic growth and creating job opportunities all over Africa.

Two possible new submarine fiber optic cable projects have been reported, although few details are available as yet, as new players and countries previously thought to be too remote to justify cable builds look to take advantage of opportunities in the market.

Main One has announced that it’s 1,92 Gbps, 7,000 kilometer long, submarine fiber optic cable system linking West Africa to Europe has been completed and commissioned. With landing stations in Nigeria and Ghana and branching units in Morocco, Canary Islands, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire, the cable will deliver unprecedented broadband capacity to West Africa, more than ten times what is currently available.

A group of seasoned investors have thrown their weight behind trans-pacific data cable company Pacific Fibre.  They join a strong founding team including Sam Morgan, Sir Stephen Tindall and Rod Drury.

As we reported last week, Israeli industrialist Oded (Dedi) Borovich has announced plans to build a submarine cable between Israel and Cyprus.  More details on the project are now being reported.

Nigerian carrier Globacom has been awarded a license to operate in Senegal.  The latest license was issued by the Government of Senegal and signed by the country's Ministers of Finance and Telecommunications.

The government of Bangladesh is continuing to move along with the process for licensing a second submarine fiber optic cable system.

The first two testing phases for the East African Submarine System (EASSy) have been completed in advance of its expected commercial launch next month.

Main One will enter service at the beginning, according to an official at the company that is building a submarine fiber optic cable connecting West Africa with Europe.

An Israeli has announced plans to build an international submarine fiber optic cable to break the monopoly on international cable capacity in Israel currently held by MedNautilus.

Following up on yesterday’s announcement that a construction and maintenance agreement has been signed for a new West African submarine fiber optic cable system, Alcatel-Lucent announced that it has signed a turnkey contract valued at over US$500 million with Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), the newly formed consortium planning to build the cable linking Cape Town in South Africa to Penmarch in France. This new submarine network system, with built-in 40 Gbps capability, will span over 17,000 km and will deliver super fast broadband communications to and from the African continent and Europe.

The Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) for the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine fiber optic cable project was signed on Saturday June 5th, 2010. An official ceremony was held at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, with the presence of government Ministers and high-ranking official representatives of several African countries, NPCA (formerly NEPAD), ECOWAS and the World Bank.

Ahead of the launch of commercial services of its Glo 1 Submarine Cable, Nigeria’s Globacom Limited has invited applications from bright, ambitious and suitably qualified candidates to fill an array of vacancies, including those of Chief Technical Officer, Planning and Provisioning Engineers, Sales and Legal Officers.

According to the Cuban News Agency, the marine survey for the ALBA-1 submarine fiber optic cable between Cuba and Venezuela has begun.

Fujitsu Limited has announced that, in collaboration with Norddeutsche Seekabelwerke GmbH (NSW) of Germany, it has successfully completed a US$100 million submarine fiber optic cable network for PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Tbk. (Telkom Indonesia) covering the Indonesian islands Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Java, Bali and Lombok and giving the residents of these islands their first direct access to high-bandwidth Internet, e-commerce, video, data, and voice services.

Huawei Marine Networks, along with partner Global Marine Systems, has successfully completed construction of the Suriname Guyana Submarine Cable System. The 1,127-kilometer SGSCS system will be the first of its kind in this region and is expected to ultimately have the potential to increase current telecom bandwidth more than 3,000 times what is currently available in these areas.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s first privately owned submarine cable operator, and Pacnet, Asia’s leading independent telecommunications service provider, are pleased to announce a partnership which will extend both companies’ international connectivity and provide new and cost-effective solutions for customers.

Telecom Egypt has announced that it will connect Jordan to its TE North (TEN) submarine cable.  The move is part of the company’s plans to expand its service offerings in the country.

Indian Internet company Sify Technologies Limited has signed an agreement with Gulf Bridge International (GBI) of Qatar to land the GBI’s submarine cable system in Mumbai, India.  GBI is the Middle-East''s first privately-owned submarine cable operator.

UNIFI Communications, a US-based international carrier, and Interoute Communications, the owner/operator of Europe’s most advanced fiber network, have announced the signing of an agreement whereby Interoute will provide the landing solution in Italy for Albania’s first competitive undersea fiber optic cable, to be constructed as the first phase of UNIFI’s Balkans-Italy Network (BIN) project, which is expected to begin providing service in Albania by the first quarter of 2011.

Cable & Wireless Communications has outlined plan to build a new major submarine cable in the Caribbean, more than doubling its carrier capacity in the region. The "East-West" cable will link Jamaica and the Cayman Islands in the west of the Caribbean, to the British Virgin Islands (Tortola) in the east. It will also land in the Dominican Republic, one of the key markets in the region.

A new submarine fiber optic cable will be built to connect Somaliland to Djibouti.  A local Somaliland company, Somaliland Cable (SomCable) Ltd, has announced that it would deploy the submarine cable. It said in a statement, that the project will begin in two phases -- it would lay the submarine cable from Djibouti port to Berbera, Somaliland, by sea, while a second fiber optic cable would be routed overland for redundancy.  The new submarine will be connected to the East African Submarine System (EASSy) in Djibouti.

Following up on yesterday’s announcement of the completion of the main lay program for the Main One West African submarine fiber optic cable system, Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), the lead investor in the Main One Cable Company marked the final splice of the cable.

Main One Cable Company and its system supplier, Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications (SubCom), have announced the on schedule completion of the main lay program by the C.S. Tyco Resolute. Installation of terminal equipment is complete in Seixal, Portugal, and underway at the system’s landing sites in Lagos, Nigeria, and Accra, Ghana. The system is expected to be ready for service in June 2010.

West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) has clarified the schedule for testing and commissioning of the East African Submarine System (EASSy), the region’s newest submarine fiber optic cable.

Telecom Egypt has announced that construction of its TE North submarine fiber optic cable system was completed in April and that the cable would be ready for service next month.

Seychelles’ efforts to bring in a submarine cable that would allow the island to connect to the global fiber optic network has attracted the support of the world’s largest multilateral source of finance for private sector projects in developing countries.

Verizon Business is enhancing its European network infrastructure to help meet data-growth demands of its enterprise customers and prepare for the activation of the Europe India Gateway submarine cable network system later this year.

Alcatel-Lucent and CanaLink, a consortium equally owned by IT3 and IslaLink, have announced at the SubOptic tradeshow in Yokohama, Japan, that they have signed a multi-million Euro contract to deploy a new submarine cable spanning 2,000 km from Cadiz in Spain to Tenerife, Gran Canaria and La Palma in the Canary Islands.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s first privately owned submarine cable operator, has announced that Omantel, Oman’s leading telecommunications provider and experienced landing site operator, will provide a landing station for GBI’s cable in Oman.

GPCS Fiber Communications, Inc. is seeking a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct work in waters of the United States in conjunction with placing a submarine fiber optic cable from the Cape Cod mainland to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

The U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is seeking information that will assist the Agency in assessing cost and feasibility of construction and operation of an undersea cable system linking the Hawaiian Islands for U.S. government use.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s first privately owned submarine cable operator, and Qtel, one of the region’s leading telecommunications companies, on May 2 concluded an agreement that will see Qtel provide a landing station for GBI’s cable in Qatar.

Two new submarine fiber optic cable systems have been proposed for Round 2 of the Broadband Initiatives Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service.  The program provides government stimulus money for infrastructure projects that would help deliver broadband services to rural areas of the United States.

West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) reports that it has noted an increase in sales inquiries for capacity on the East African Submarine System (EASSy) as it moves closer to carrying live traffic.

West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) reports that it has noted an increase in sales inquiries for capacity on the East African Submarine System (EASSy) as it moves closer to carrying live traffic.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the newly established submarine cable operator in the region, and Telecommunication Infrastructure Company of Iran (TIC) have agreed to land GBI's submarine telecom cable in Iran and have signed the Landing Party Agreement.

African Submarine cable operators Main One and SEACOM, along with South Africa’s eFive Telecoms, have announced that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to launch a project to develop a pan-African fiber ring solution.

The government of Lebanon is planning to invite international firms to bid for a contract to create a $100 million terrestrial fiber-optic network aimed at unlocking the country's high-speed Internet potential, according to the country’s telecommunications minister.

The West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) has announced that construction of its East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) has been completed; marking the achievement of yet another major milestone towards the launch of what will be the largest cable system serving sub-Saharan African and connecting it to the world.

The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) has reported that the four mobile phone operators in Kenya had a combined subscription base of 19.4 million in December 2009, representing a penetration rate of close to 50 percent, as the landing of new submarine cable brings growth to the country.

At a recent event for the local media, UUNET Kenya executives outlined their plans for 2010.  The three East African submarine fiber optic cable systems figure prominently in the company’s plans.

The East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) landed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, recently, bringing the construction phase of the project even closer to completion.

His Royal Highness Prince Hj Al-Muhtadee Billah, the Crown Prince and Senior Minister at the Prime Minister's Office, has launched the new Asia-America Gateway (AAG) submarine cable in Brunei.  The inauguration of the Brunei segment signified the readiness to carry commercial traffic to and from the country.

The Office des Postes et Telecommunications de Polynesie francaise (OPT), the telecom operator for French Polynesia, has been granted a waiver on certain requirements for its license application for the Honotua submarine cable system.

The final landing for the East Africa Submarine System (EASSy) was completed last week at Msasani Beach in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  Testing began this week and it is expected that EASSy will be ready for service by the summer.

Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI) has decided to provide Buyer's Credit Insurance (credit period of two years or more) concerning the export of a submarine fiber optic cable system installed for Kalimantan Island in Indonesia. The cable system has been exported to PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Tbk (Telkom), the largest telecommunication carrier in Indonesia.

The Mauritanian Information Agency (AMI) has reported that Mauritania was connected on April 7 to a submarine fiber optic between Europe and Africa.

The landing of a new submarine fiber optic cable in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) has led the local carrier, FSM Telecom Corporation (FSMTC), to select Occam Networks®, Inc., for a major high speed network upgrade enabling wireline broadband service.

Today (April 8), the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) will be increasing its international Internet capacity by 445 percent, as a result of its recently announced deal with East African submarine cable operator SEACOM.

Over 9,870 kilometers of submarine fiber optic cable for the East African Submarine System (EASSy) have been installed as the cable moves closer to complete.  EASSy has been landed in Mombasa, Kenya, and Moroni, the Comores.  Work has begun this week on the final landing of the system.

Pacnet has announced that EAC Pacific, its newest subsea cable linking Japan and the United States, is now ready for service following months of intensive testing.

Indonesian carrier PT Telkom has reported that construction of a major domestic submarine fiber optic cable system is underway.

Developers of one of two planned cables between the China Mainland and Taiwan have applied for Taiwanese regulatory approval to build the cable.

In a recent presentation at the APRICOT 2010 in Kuala Lumpur, Tata Communications updated the status of its upcoming submarine cable projects.  The following is a brief summary of where the projects stand.

Unity, a consortium of six international companies, together with its suppliers NEC Corporation and TE SubCom (formerly Tyco Telecommunications), has announced that the Trans-Pacific Unity submarine cable system has successfully completed comprehensive end-to-end testing and is now ready for service.

Plans are progressing for Bangladesh’s second submarine international fiber optic cable system.  At a press conference in Dhaka, a government representative reported that the new cable would run from Khulna, Bangladesh to Chennai, India.

The Federated States of Micronesia Telecommunications Corporation (FSMTC) and the Marshall Islands National Telecommunications Authority (MINTA), along with TE SubCom, an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, have announced they have completed construction of FSMTC and MINTA Extensions to the HANTRU1 Cable System, which connects Kwajalein, Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Guam in the western equatorial Pacific. The extensions will provide the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands with high bandwidth connectivity to the rest of the world via state-of-the-art undersea fiber optic links.  Previously connectivity to these island nations was only available using satellite transmission.

Hannon Armstrong Capital, LLC, Truestone, LLC and TE SubCom, an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, has announced they have completed construction and commissioning of the HANTRU1 Cable System. The system, which connects Kwajalein in the Republic of the Marshall Islands to Guam, will provide regional and international connectivity in the previously underserved Pacific region, via undersea fiber connections.

Globacom Chairman, Dr. Mike Adenuga Jr., said in a recent event in Accra, Ghana, that the network his company is building in Ghana would be the best in Africa, led by its Glo-1 submarine cable.

Telecom operators in New Zealand are publicly coming out in support of Pacific Fibre’s recently announcement that it would begin raising money to build a submarine cable system connecting Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

As of March 14th, over 6,500 kilometers (nearly two-thirds) of the EASSy cable had been successfully deployed into the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, according to the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC).

Oman is rapidly becoming a regional hub for submarine cables landing in the Persian Gulf.  Omantel, the country’s leading carrier, said in a recent statement that the recognition Oman has received from regional and global telecom players, allied to its ideal geographical location, has ensured that the Sultanate has been identified as an important landing point for major international cable systems.

Telecom Egypt has announced that its submarine cable TE North will begin operations in the next two months.

According to news website V3.co.uk, the Unity transpacific cable is nearing completion.  The cable will reportedly increase lit cable capacity by around 20 percent.

SEACOM, the privately funded and over three quarter African owned submarine fiber optic cable system, has been awarded an agreement to supply Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) with international broadband fiber connectivity via a backhaul link through Djibouti.

PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (TII), which recently joined the Southeast Asia Japan Cable (SJC) consortium, said that SJC would be the biggest piece of its extensive international and domestic submarine fiber optic cable network.

Hong Kong’s telecommunications regulator, the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA), is has released the preliminary findings of a study on the landing of submarine cables in Hong Kong, including the measures that the Administration should adopt in order to facilitate and promote the landing of new cables in the territory.

With the HANTRU1 submarine fiber cable laid between Pohnpei and Guam and expected to be ready for service shortly, Federated States of Micronesia Telecommunications Company (FSMTC) has undertaken to reform its Internet rates and also introduce brand new Internet services.

Oman carrier Nawras has announced its participation in the Tata Gulf Cable as the exclusive landing party in Oman for one of the most advanced and largest submarine cable networks in the world. This development means that Nawras customers will be able to benefit from connectivity to more than 200 countries through the latest technology.

Pacific Fibre, an early stage international fiber venture founded by a group including New Zealand businessmen Stephen Tindall, Sam Morgan and Rod Drury, announced its plans to build a new submarine cable system, aiming to break the digital divide between New Zealand, Australia and the rest of the world.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s first privately owned submarine cable operator, has announced that Batelco, the Kingdom of Bahrain’s leading communications provider, will provide a landing station for the new submarine cable being installed by Gulf Bridge International.

The Office des postes et telecommunications (OPT) of French Polynesia is taking tenders for IP access and ongoing connectivity for its new Honotua submarine cable system linking French Polynesia and Hawaii.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) and TATA Communications have officially confirmed their partnership for the construction of the Tata Global Network (TGN) Gulf Project, where Qtel will enable Qatar’s role as a designated ‘landing party’ in the regional network.

We have been reporting in the NewsFeed on applications made under the U.S. Government’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to stimulate the development of broadband in the United States.  Five of these applications involved the building of submarine cable systems.

The 5,000-kilometer Honotua submarine cable system landed in Hawaii on Monday.  Testing of the cable began almost immediately and the expectation is that it will enter service this summer.

An executive from Nigerian telecom carrier Phase 3 Telecom said his company is looking forward to access capacity on new West African submarine cable systems.

Papua New Guinea only became connected to the global fiber optic network in the past few years, but the country has already seen the benefit in terms of greatly reduced prices for Internet capacity.

Triton Telecom’s Seahorse-1 submarine cable project in the Caribbean has a new schedule and configuration, according to Triton’s parent company’s CEO, who detailed their plans to BNamericas.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s first privately owned submarine cable operator, has announced that STC will provide the landing station for GBI’s cable in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Government officials from Hawaii and French Polynesia plan to celebrate the landing of the Honotua submarine fiber optic cable in Kona, Hawaii on March 1.

The government of Tasmania has made the building a submarine fiber optic cable between the island and the rest of Australia within three to five years a priority of its infrastructure program.

The East African Submarine System (EASSy) is scheduled to land in Mombasa, Kenya, on April 1, after a delay caused by re-routing to avoid piracy off Somalia.  The re-routing reportedly cost the consortium building EASSy US$6 million.

Xtera Communications, Inc., a leading global provider of optical and IP networking solutions, has been awarded a contract by Togo Telecom to deploy a high capacity optical network across the West African country of Togo.

Tata Communications and its Middle East telecom operator partners announced that Tyco Telecommunications would be constructing the TGN Gulf cable system.  The announcement was made at a gala event in Dubai hosted by Tata Communications and attended by representatives of the partners as well as Tyco Telecommunications. At the event, Tata Communications unveiled its commitment to the Middle East region by earmarking around $200 million for the development of its telecom operations in the region over the next two years.

Neotel, South Africa’s second national carrier, reported that it celebrated the start of the final construction phase of the Eastern Africa Submarine System (EASSy), with a visit to supplier Alcatel-Lucent’s fully laden cable-laying ship docked in Durban harbor.

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, more than 1,800 applications for broadband telecommunications projects were received by the government for funding consideration.  As we noted earlier, five of the applications called for the building of significant submarine cable networks.

As we have been reporting, the Eastern Africa Submarine System (EASSy) landed in South Africa last weekend.  The South African landing was widely reported and marked the southern end of the cable system, but construction has been progressing in the north as well.

South African mobile phone operator MTN has issued a statement following the landing of the East Africa Submarine System (EASSy) in South Africa last weekend.

The routing of the Europe India Gateway (EIG) cable through Gibraltar’s waters has become the subject of controversy in Gibraltar.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s first privately owned submarine cable operator, announced signing of an agreement with UAE’s integrated telecom service provider, du, as part of which du will be the landing party for GBI’s new submarine cable. du will be landing this cable in its newly built Fujairah Cable Landing Station.

Installation of the Honotua submarine fiber optic cable linking Hawaii with five South Pacific islands is moving closer to completion.

Jamaica’s telecommunications regulator, the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), has extended its deadline for applications for submarine cable licenses for February 26, 2010.  OUR said that the extension followed representation from prospective applicants for licenses that their preparations to submit applications have been affected by the Haiti earthquake.

Global Marine Systems has announced the completion of the Trinidad cable landing, the next milestone in the installation of the Suriname Guyana Submarine Cable System (SGSCS). The Trinidad link will provide direct access to high volumes of bandwidth from providers in North American and elsewhere, dramatically improving access to the Internet and related communications services. The landing occurred on 9 February 2010 at Macqueripe Bay Trinidad.

The East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) landed at Mtunzini, South Africa, on Saturday, February 13.

The first direct submarine cable link between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland will begin construction soon.

Philippines carrier Globe Telecom expects broadband demand in that country to explode.  The company predicted recently in a stock exchange filing that the number of broadband subscribers in the Philippines would nearly double in 2010, reaching four to five million.

It is being widely reported by the Indian media that Reliance Communications is asking for US$3 billion as it attempts to sell its global submarine cable network.  The carrier has made no public comment about the sale, but Reuters and other media outlets claim to have documents and sources that indicate that the bid process is underway.

Lebanon’s international Internet backbone is expected to grow considerably with the completion of the India-Middle East-Western Europe (I-ME-WE) submarine cable system.

The Government of Seychelles, though the Department of Information Communications Technology, has begun studying the feasibility of a submarine cable link for the island nation.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s newly established, privately owned submarine cable operator, has announced that Vodafone Qatar, Qatar’s rapidly growing new mobile operator, will provide a landing station for GBI’s cable in Qatar.

As we reported last month, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Tbk (Telkom), through its subsidiary engaged in international business, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Internasional (TII), signed an agreement during the Pacific Telecommunications Council’s annual meeting in Honolulu last month to join the Southeast Asia Japan Cable System (SJC) consortium.  The company has released additional details about its participation in the project.

The Main One Cable Company has announced the commencement of the final laying of its high capacity fiber optic cable from Seixal, Portugal, along the coast of West Africa to Ghana and Nigeria. The cable, which goes live in June 2010, is bringing the much-needed international capacity to a region where explosive growth in tele-density in recent years has been negated by poor global connectivity.

PIPE Networks Limited has announced a strong profit result for the six-month period ended 31 December 2009 amounting $16.6 million from continuing operations.

Pacnet, through its joint venture Pacific Internet India Pvt. Ltd. (Pacnet India), has obtained National Long Distance (NLD) and International Long Distance (ILD) licenses from the Department of Telecommunications of India, providing businesses in India broader access to Pacnet’s suite of advanced telecommunications solutions.

Global Marine Systems has announced the completion of the Suriname Totness cable landing, an important milestone in the installation of the Suriname Guyana Submarine Cable System (SGSCS).

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission reported that it has received a letter dated January 12, 2010, from the U.S. Department of State detailing policy guidance on licensing the provision of telecommunications service between the United State and Cuba.  The new policy allows, among other things, U.S. companies to build submarine cable links to Cuba, which has been prohibited for decades.

Verizon Business enterprise customers can take advantage of increased network capacity and additional diversity for their IP, data and voice communications needs, with the completion of the latest Trans-Pacific Express submarine cable landing -- in Shin Maruyama, Japan.

New Zealand telecommunications and media company Kordia said it is continuing to develop a submarine fiber optic cable linking New Zealand and Australia.  The company has named the cable project “OptiKor.”

Globe Telecom, a leading telecommunications provider in the Philippines, has announced its second fiber optic backbone network (FOBN2) has been put into commission and is now fully operational.

Construction of the East African Submarine System (EASSy) has begun.  The first section has been laid in Maputo Bay, Mozambique, according to West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC).

An Alaskan company has become the world’s largest developer of submarine cable systems thanks to two proposed projects, ArcticLink and Northern Fiber Optic Link (NFOL).  If both are built, the more than 20,000 route-kilometers of submarine fiber optic cable that will be required to build them makes them larger than any other individual or group of related projects currently under development by at least 25%.

PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Tbk, through its subsidiary PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International (TII), has announced that it will increase international submarine cable bandwidth by joining the Southeast Asia Japan Cable (SJC) consortium.

Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) has announced that it has signed an agreement to join a consortium of telecommunications carriers to build and operate the new Southeast Asia Japan Cable system (SJC), a new international submarine cable system with the highest capacity in the world.

A submarine cable system running from India to Southeast Asia will land in India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, according to a local newspaper.

The Kodiak-Kenai Cable Company (KKCC) has announced plans to finance, design, build and operate a submarine fiber optic cable connecting Asia and Europe.

Australia’s PIPE Networks has asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to consent to transfer control of the cable landing license for the PPC 1 Cable System (SCL-LIC-20080213-00001, SCL-MOD-2090910-00027), held by joint licensees PPC 1 Limited and PPC 1 (US), Inc. from PIPE Networks Limited) to TPG Telecom Limited.

Responding to the increasing need for fiber optic broadband communications in the offshore oil & gas industry, Ocean Specialists Inc. (OSI) has completed a turnkey submarine cable installation for a major oil and gas operator in the Gulf of Mexico.

Nextgen Networks Pty Ltd, Matrix Networks Pte Ltd and PT NAP Info Lintas Nusa are exploring a proposal to build a new international cable system that will link Singapore to Sydney, Australia, via Perth.

The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has released document entitled Revised Draft Regulatory and Licensing Guideline for Invitation of Proposals for Issuing Licenses to Build, Operate and Maintain Submarine Cable (SC) Systems and Services in Bangladesh.

Gulf Bridge International, the Middle East’s first privately owned submarine cable operator, and Iraqi Telecom & Post Company have signed an agreement to land GBI’s new undersea telecommunications cable in Iraq. The agreement was signed in Kuwait on January 7 in the presence of Iraqi Minister of Communication, Farouq Abed al-Qader.

Global Marine Systems has announced the completion of the Guyana cable landing, an important milestone in the installation of the Suriname Guyana Submarine Cable System (SGSCS).

Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) has announced that the Guyana landing of the Suriname-Guyana Submarine Cable System (S-GSCS) will begin shortly.  The cable will have the distinction of being the first fiber optic submarine cable that lands directly in Guyana.

The Kenyan government would like to have the Low Indian Ocean Network (LION) submarine cable extended into its country, even though Kenya already has two operational submarine cables and will be adding a third in 2010.

NTT Communications (NTT Com) has announced that it has launched a new cable route linking Japan to the Trans-Pacific Express Cable Network (TPE), an optical fiber cable system that interconnects Mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States and now Japan.

Signaling a major milestone in Singapore’s telecommunications industry, the long-awaited Asia-America Gateway (AAG) – a 20,000km submarine cable network system that directly links Asia to the US – has launched, powering the next generation in international connectivity, collaboration and multimedia content for the country. Services over the new cable system will be commercially available in January 2010. The launch marks a turning point in StarHub’s 10-year history as the company will now manage and operate the Singapore-link of the AAG through its first cable landing station.

Baharicom Development Company (BDC) recently signed an MoU with the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) Consortium to co-build a submarine cable that will stretch from France to South Africa, connecting all countries along the West coast of Africa.

We have been profiling several submarine cable projects that have applied for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s RUS Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and the NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).  In this issue, we will look at a proposed project in the Florida Keys.

Huawei Marine Networks Co., Ltd. has announced the successful bid for Libya’s LPTIC T-E submarine cable project, to provide end-to-end turnkey submarine system solutions.

Members of the Southeast Asia-Japan Cable (SJC) consortium have released formal statements regarding last week’s agreement to move forward on the project that we reported on Monday.  The project received a tremendous amount of press attention because of the involvement of Internet search engine giant Google.

The Marshall Islands National Telecommunications Authority (MINTA) and Tyco Telecommunications, a business unit of Tyco Electronics and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, have announced the Marshall Islands-flagged Tyco Durable has returned to Majuro, RMI, and will begin to lay cable as part of a regional subsea cable project that will ultimately deliver high-bandwidth connectivity between the island nation and the rest of the world. In commemoration, the companies will host government delegates from the Republic of the Marshall Islands for an event on board the cable ship.

We have been profiling several submarine cable projects that have applied for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s RUS Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and the NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).  In this issue, we will look at the Puerto Rico Bridge Initiative (PRBI).

We have been profiling several submarine cable projects that have applied for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s RUS Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and the NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).  In this issue, we will look at the BLAST project in American Samoa.

Tunisie Telecom has brought digital independence to Tunisia by landing the country’s first 100% African-owned subsea cable in Europe, firmly establishing itself as the leader in IT innovation in the region.  Dubbed “Hannibal,” in honor of the Carthaginian general who sailed from ancient Tunisia to conquer Italy, the new cable connects North Africa to Interoute’s pan European next-generation network, via Interoute’s landing station in Sicily.

The submarine cable LION (Lower Indian Ocean Network) was officially inaugurated in Reunion on December 14. The submarine fiber-optic cable, which connects Madagascar, Reunion and Mauritius, was lit on the island on November 16, 2009. The project was financed by a consortium made up of Orange Madagascar, Mauritius Telecom and France Telecom S.A.

Cable & Wireless (C&W) said its customers will enjoy the benefits of increased bandwidth and the services offered following the commissioning of its $10 million submarine fiber optic cable.

A consortium of carriers has reached an agreement to build the Southeast Asia-Japan Cable (SJC), which will be the highest-capacity cable yet constructed.  The consortium includes India’s Bharti AIrtel, Global Telecom of the Philippines (owned by Singapore Telecom), Google, KDDI, Reliance Globalcom, and Telemedia Pacific, a Hong Kong/Indonesia company.

As we noted last week, several submarine fiber optic cable projects are among the many applications for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  Last week we profiled one of the proposals, the Northern Fiber Optic Link (NOFL).  In this issue, we are looking at a second proposal in Alaska, the Aleutian Fiber Connection.

Huawei Marine Networks Co., Ltd. has announced that it has successfully delivered the Hannibal submarine cable communications system for Tunisie Telecom. Accepted by the customer, the system has become operational.

The successful completion of two major telecommunications infrastructure projects by Indosat, part of the Qtel Group, will deliver major enhancements to the quality and reliability of communications in Indonesia and the wider region, it was announced recently.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has dismissed an application made by FLAG Telecom Network USA Limited (FLAG USA) to build a transpacific submarine cable.

Pacnet has announced that it will be making its largest investment into growing its presence in India by building West Asia Crossing (WAC), a new submarine cable network that will provide direct connectivity between India and Asia, and address the country's growing requirements for international bandwidth.

CeltixConnect has announced that it has commenced construction of a high-capacity fiber optic submarine cable that will connect Ireland to the UK. Once deployed, CeltixConnect will deliver the resilience, diversity and low latency connectivity now demanded by enterprises, carriers and mobile operators alike. CeltixConnect model will allow end users to buy or lease dedicated dark fiber on the submarine cable or alternatively lease high capacity managed services on this uniquely designed route, the company said in a statement.

The Vietnam Telecoms International (VTI), a unit of Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), has activated the Vietnamese portion of the Asia America Gateway (AAG) cable network.

AT&T has announced a significant expansion of its network capacity in the Asia-Pacific region through its participation in the Asia-America Gateway (AAG) consortium. The consortium, focused on building an undersea cable system connecting Southeast Asia and the United States, recently announced the completion of the 20,000 kilometer-long AAG submarine cable network’s comprehensive testing. This milestone now enables AAG to begin carrying commercial traffic.

According to Indonesian news service VIVAnews, Indonesian carrier PT Excelcomindo Pratama (XL) plans to build a new submarine fiber optic cable across the Malacca Straits to connect Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.

Several companies looking to build submarine cables are among the 2,200 applications received by the United States government for stimulus money under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Huawei Marine Networks Co., Ltd. has announced that it signed a turnkey contract with PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk. (PT Telkom) for the Mataram-Kupang Cable System (MKCS).  The system will connect five islands in eastern Indonesia and extend about 1,200 kilometers, with an initial capacity of 4 × 10 Gbps. The project is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2010.

The West Indian Cable Company (WIOCC), the investment vehicle for the East Africa Submarine System (EASSy), has announced that its cable system is on schedule for completion in June 2009.

Bella Vista Trading Services S.A. and Energia Integral Andina S.A. have selected Alcatel-Lucent, in consortium with IT International Telecom, Canada’s leading marine service provider, to deploy this first cable link between the Colombian Mainland and San Andres Island, which has a population of some 85,000 citizens.

The ACE (Africa Coast to Europe) submarine cable system, which will stretch from France to South Africa, connecting all countries along the West coast of Africa, has added a number of new members.

Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, using the cable ship Ile de Re, has begun laying the Honotua submarine cable connecting French Polynesia and Hawaii.

The Vietnamese Prime Minister has approved Vietnam Posts and Telecommunication’s (VNPT's) planned investment in the Asia-Pacific Gateway (APG) undersea cable system.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) has issued a statement regarding its participation in the recently announced Persian Gulf submarine cable system in partnership with Tata Communications.  Under the terms of the agreement, Qtel will be the designated landing party in Qatar for the Tata Global Network (TGN) Gulf Cable System, with other regional operators playing the same role for their respective nations.

This state-of-the-art cable system will connect the Gulf Region directly to the world's major business hubs and city centers through the Global Network, improving connectivity and providing the foundations for next generation communication technology. Completion of this new system will make an important contribution to Qtel’s strategy to connect Qatar with the world.

In addition to Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates will be connected to TGN Gulf Cable in the initial Phase. Subsequently, in the second phase other countries in the Gulf will be conjoined.

The total length of the cable system within the Gulf region will stretch some 4,469 kilometers, reaching from Mumbai through to Oman and onto Kuwait. The segment will connect to Tata Communications’ global cable and backhaul network, which is one of the largest in the world.

Dr. Nasser Marafih, Chief Executive Officer, Qtel, said, “Qtel is delighted to announce this agreement with Tata Communications, which will bring a new global, and much needed, resilient submarine cable to Qatar. The enhanced capacity provided by this cabling solution will help ensure rapid growth of Broadband services across Qatar.”

Building and installing the global submarine cable will take approximately 22 months. The cable and the relationships enabled by the Gulf Cable System will provide the basis for an extended portfolio of value added services for local and global enterprise customers. When it is completed, the cable will enable at least 1.28 Tbps of additional international connectivity in the region

Through the TGN-Gulf Cable System, people in Qatar will have access to new, high-speed global routing that will encourage expansion in broadband penetration, Internet usage and enterprise applications, and can look forward to faster and more reliable bandwidth, while the more resilient and diverse cable structure will benefit generations to come.

Vinod Kumar, President and COO of Tata Communications, said, “We are delighted to be in partnership with a progressive and committed company like Qtel. This partnership is designed to create mutual benefit, which will multiply steadily as we use the foundation of the TGN Gulf cable system to develop additional network and IT services that address growing market needs.”  

Qtel and Tata Communications have worked together for many years to meet Qatar’s ever-growing requirements for international data and voice services. Under the terms of an earlier agreement signed in June of 2009, the two companies are aligning their infrastructures to provide secure, scalable and flexible connectivity solutions including Ethernet, MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) and a wide variety of managed services to their global customers.

“Qtel’s ongoing investment in cabling solutions will make a significant contribution to positioning Qatar as a leading regional and international hub for data and managed services, part of the wider strategic move towards expanding the knowledge-based economy,” concluded Dr. Nasser.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina plans to discuss plans for a submarine fiber optic cable to India during her visit to that county in December.  The cable is one of the key infrastructure projects on the agenda for discussion during her visit.

According to the Commercial Times, a Taiwanese newspaper, officials at Taiwan Mobile, the second largest mobile operator in the country, and China Unicom, have formalized their plans to jointly construct a submarine fiber optic cable linking the two countries.

Tata Communications, as part of its strategic intent to participate and assist in the rapid development of the Middle East Region, has signed strategic partnership agreements with several of the major telecommunications operators in the Middle East to construct a new cable system into the Gulf. The new cable will connect the Region directly to the world's major business hubs and city centers via Tata's Global Network (the TGN).

eircom has announced that it has partnered with Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transatlantic submarine transport cable provider, to provide direct fiber optic connections from the eircom data center in Clonshaugh to the United States and Canada.

Additional information has been made public on plans for a system of submarine cables linking the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA).  Key players in the field of information and communications technology (ICT) from the region met in the Philippines recently for the 5th BIMP-EAGA Working Group on ICT Meeting.  One of the highlights of the meeting was an agreement by the group to explore the installation of a submarine cable that would link its members (see Submarine Cable World NewsFeed for November 16, 2009).

SEACOM, the privately funded and over three-quarter African owned submarine fiber optic cable system, was named "Best Pan African Initiative” at the AfricaCom Awards 2009 ceremony held in Cape Town, South Africa, on Wednesday, 11 November 2009. The award recognizes an initiative taken by an organization or a group of organizations to improve telecommunications services at a regional or continental level.

True Internet Gateway (TIG) Co., Ltd. has become the sole Thai gateway provider able to offer the security of both terrestrial and submarine connectivity to Thailand after being the first private operator to be granted a license for submarine cable landing rights by the Thai National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on November 12. The license will furthermore allow TIG to establish interconnections with Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia and become the leading gateway to these nations.

Indonesian carrier PT Indosat has inaugurated the JAKABARE submarine cable system, linking three landing points in Indonesia with Singapore.

UUNET Kenya has acquired a second international Point of Presence (POP) in London, joining the one it has operated since 2005 in Fuchsstadt, Germany.

SP Telemedia Limited (SPT) and PIPE Networks Limited have entered into a merger implementation agreement under which it is proposed that SPT acquire all of the shares outstanding of PIPE via a scheme of arrangement for A$6.30 cash per share.

NEC Corporation has announced a win for the first submarine-cable based integrated ocean observation system for the Central Weather Bureau of Taiwan. The system will be deployed in the sea off of eastern Taiwan in order to strengthen seismic and environmental observations in the area. Construction of the system is scheduled for completion in June 2011.

Hannibal, the first 100%-owned Tunisian international submarine fiber optic cable system has been inaugurated.

The opening last week of the 20,000-kilometer-long Asia America Gateway (AAG) submarine cable network marks a key milestone in Telstra’s expansion in Asia. As the largest capacity owner in the consortium which commissioned the AAG submarine cable, Telstra will be able to offer a new low latency route from South East Asia to North America, providing its customers with greater access to Asian markets, further strengthening the reliability, diversity and routing options for its market leading services, the company said in a statement.

Key players in the field of information and communications technology (ICT) from the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippine East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) met in the Philippines last week for the 5th BIMP-EAGA Working Group on ICT Meeting.  One of the highlights of the meeting was an agreement by the group to explore the installation of a submarine cable that would link its members.

Nigeria's second national telecommunications operator, Globacom, has taken another major step towards its vision to expand its services in Africa by obtaining an operating license in Cote d'Ivoire.  The license will allow Globacom to extend its new submarine cable system, Glo-1, to Cote d'Ivoire.

AccessKenya Group, Kenya’s first publicly listed ICT company and leading corporate Internet service provider, has announced that it has commissioned its international connectivity on both the SEACOM and TEAMS East African submarine fiber optic cables and has provided for diverse paths to the internet to ensure full international redundancy on international fiber.  This announcement comes shortly after AccessKenya was chosen by Tata Communications to host their Tier 1 PoP in Kenya.

Bangladesh is moving forward with plans to build a second submarine cable system.  The country, which has suffered from erratic Internet access due to its dependence on a single submarine fiber optic cable, SEA-ME-WE-4, is developing plans for an alternative cable that would connect Bangladesh with India.

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM), together with the consortium of Asia America Gateway (AAG) submarine cable network, has announced the completion of its comprehensive test requirement. The 20,000 km submarine cable network is ready to go live and start carrying commercial traffic.

Gulf Bridge International (GBI) has signed an agreement with Iraq Telecommunications and Post Company (ITPC) for the landing rights of submarine fiber optic cables in Iraq.

The Asia America Gateway (AAG) cable has been completed and will begin carrying commercial traffic on November 10.

The first phase of the Low Indian Ocean Network (LION), a submarine cable system connecting Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion, is now operational.  According to reports from Madagascar, the cable is only awaiting government approval before beginning to carry traffic.

Pacnet is on track to deliver enhanced connectivity across the Pacific with its latest cable extension linking Japan and the United States. A part of the Unity cable system, EAC Pacific is expected to be ready for service in the first quarter of 2010.

Hibernia Atlantic has announced that it is on track to complete a multi-million euro cable build project, known as Project Kelvin, providing the island of Ireland with its first direct 40 Gbps network. The network is designed to provide capacity and redundancy for future business opportunities, both globally and locally.

The Unity consortium has announced the landing of its transpacific fiber optic cable system in Chikura, Japan, marking an important milestone in the construction of a new system that will deliver significant increase in capacity between the United States and Japan.

Botswana’s Abari Communications has purchased bandwidth capacity from SEACOM, which recently completed a submarine cable network running along the east coast of the African continent.

According to Spanish news agency EFE, the Cuban government has yet to be contacted by any U.S. companies regarding the building of a submarine cable between the two countries.

The World Bank is supporting a number of initiatives, including the East African Submarine System (EASSy), to improve Africa’s infrastructure development.  These initiatives will strengthen the capacity of public institutions such as the sectoral ministries and regulatory authorities and will promote a competition-friendly environment by liberalizing the sector and restructuring telecommunications operators.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has been awarded "Sponsor of the Year" Award by Africa Investor magazine in South Africa.

The East African Community (EAC) has released a statement relating to the East African Regional Fiber Backbone.

The government of Rwanda is in final talks with SEACOM to bring down the prices of the international bandwidth from about US$2,700 to $50 for each Mbps per month.

MTN Nigeria has announced that it is joining other international carriers in an agreement that would usher in the West African Cable System (WACS).  WACS is a submarine cable system that will connect Europe, West Africa and South Africa with over 3.8 Tbps of capacity.

Carriers in Cyprus, Lebanon and Syria are planning to upgrade several submarine cable systems, while also participating in new cable projects that will help meet growing demand in the region.

Rwandatel has officially launched the connection of its Internet services to the SEACOM East African international submarine cable network.

PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (Telkom) will begin building a fiber optic backbone this month in Eastern Territory of Indonesia by taking part in Palapa Ring configuration covering the routes of Mataram-Kupang, Manado-Sorong, and Fakfak-Makassar.

Hibernia Atlantic has announced that its company’s CEO, Bjarni K. Thorvardarson, has been awarded a Golden Bridges Award for promoting partnerships between North America and Ireland through its new, fiber optic cable build development, entitled “Project Kelvin.”  Hibernia Atlantic is the only extensive submarine and terrestrial cable deployment that will directly connect the Island of Ireland to North America.

The Malawi Privatization Commission (MPC) is inviting applications from firms wishing to bid for contracts included in the World Bank-financed $20-million regional communications infrastructure program (RCIP), which entails construction of infrastructure to link Malawi with the coastal landing stations of submarine cables expected to be in place by 2010.

The Venezuelan government said that construction of the long-discussed Venezuela-Cuba submarine cable would begin shortly.  Venezuela's Science and Technology Minister, Jesse Chacon, said that Telecom Venezuela and Cuban carrier Telebit have reached an agreement with Alcatel-Lucent for the supply and installation of the cable system.  In a statement, the minister said that construction of the cable would start this week.

The government of Ghana has described the recent landing of Globacom's international submarine fiber optic cable along the west coast of Africa as the beginning of a new dawn in the continent's telecommunications industry.

In a filing to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, PPC 1 Limited and PPC 1 (US), Inc. seek authority to modify the cable landing license for the PPC 1 cable system, SCL-LIC-20080213-00001, to exclude the landing station in Madang, Papua New Guinea, and the PNG Spur, which connects a branching unit on the segment connecting Sydney, Australia, with Piti, Guam, (Australia-Guam Trunk) to the Madang landing station.

Kenya’s Jamii Telecoms Ltd has become the first company to connect to The East African Marine System (TEAMS) cable, which has been undergoing tests since it landed in the country in June.

Botswana Telecommunication Corporation (BTC) will become a member of the West African Cable System (WACS) consortium.

Tata Communications, a leading provider of a new world of communications, today announced that it will start delivering capacity into Australia via the privately owned PIPE Pacific 1 (PPC-1) cable system.

Neotel has announced the construction of the East African Submarine Cable (EASSy), one of four submarine cables in which the first converged network operator is involved, is still on track. This follows the recent Management Committee of the EASSy cable held at Livingstone in Zambia at which Neotel is represented.

Telkom South Africa is taking advantage of the many options now available for undersea cable capacity in Southern Africa.  The company noted that there are at least nine operational and planned submarine telecommunication cables that will connect various parts of Sub-Saharan Africa to the rest of the world by the end of 2011.

TeleCuba Communications, Inc. has announced that it has been granted licenses by the U.S. Government, Department of the Treasury (OFAC), to install the first of its kind direct fiber optic submarine cable between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba. The announcement comes in the wake of the Obama Administration's removing of many of the telecommunications restrictions mandated by the embargo.

Internode has increased data quotas and lowers plan costs as it passes on to customers the benefits of the PIPE PPC-1 international submarine fiber optic link, which went live last week.

MainOne Cable Company has announced the conclusion of the shore-end laying of its West African submarine fiber optic cable in Lagos, Nigeria, and Accra, Ghana.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced the grant of a cable-landing license to GU Holdings Inc. et al., for the purpose of landing and operating a non-common carrier fiber-optic submarine cable system, the Unity Cable System, between the United States and Japan. The cable system will have landing stations in Chikura, Japan, and Hermosa Beach, California.

The Philippines National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), the telecom regulator in the Philippines, have extended the provisional authority of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) to operate the cable-landing station for the Asia America Gateway (AAG).

In a separate statement, PIPE International noted that PPC-1 was officially switched-on today at a special event at Sydney’s Australian Technology Park.  The successful completion of Australia’s first independent submarine cable was two years in the making and cost $200 million.

PIPE International, a fully owned subsidiary of PIPE Networks Limited, and Tyco Telecommunications, a business unit of Tyco Electronics and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, have announced they have completed the PPC-1 cable system. The completion of the 6,900 km system linking Sydney to Guam will provide enhanced connectivity to the region and ultimately lower capacity costs by generating increased competition in the Australian undersea cable market, the companies said in a statement.

Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transAtlantic submarine transport cable provider, today announces that its company’s CEO, Bjarni K. Thorvardarson, will present on transAtlantic opportunities between Northwest Ireland and North America.  The presentation will be held on Thursday, October 8 at 9:15am, during the Irish Echo ‘Gateways to Tomorrow’ Conference at the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center in Boston.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Consortium for Ocean Leadership have signed a Cooperative Agreement that supports the construction and initial operation of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI).

Uganda Christian University (UCU) could be connected to the SEACOM undersea cable this month if negotiations bear fruit, the acting director of the Uganda Computing Services (UCS), Mr. Alex Kisakye said in September.

Millennium Telecom Ltd. (MTL), a joint venture between India's state-run telecommunications companies -- Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) -- is planning to go ahead with its plan to build an extensive international submarine cable network in the Indian Ocean.

The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) and Main One Cable Company signed a loan agreement of US$61 million towards the development of a submarine fiber optic cable connection along the West African coast. With this investment, the Bank has further expanded its wide support for African ICT projects following investments in the East African EASSy submarine cable and two satellite systems -- Rascom and New Dawn.

South Africa’s Allied Technologies Limited (Altech) has announced the group’s interim results for the six months ended 31 August 2009.  The carrier is a major investor in new East African submarine cable systems, which form a major part of the company’s strategy.

The impact of a devastating tsunami on American Samoa on September 29 has yet to be fully determined and it appears that the island’s only submarine cable is still functioning, but in days before the tsunami, American Samoa was looking ahead to its second cable.

New Zealand carrier Kordia has announced that its Board of Directors is very pleased with the progress being made on Kordia’s development of a project to deploy a trans-Tasman submarine cable, and confirms that work will continue to ramp up over the next six months or so.

In celebration of SEACOM’s historical arrival on the coast of East Africa, SEACOM will host the SEACOM Broadband Experience in South Africa as an exhibition that educates the broader market on the capabilities and potential delivered through true broadband.

Nigerian carrier Globacom has announced the landing of its West African submarine cable system, Glo-1, in Accra, Ghana.

Alcatel-Lucent has announced that scientists in Bell Labs, the company’s research arm, have set a new optical transmission record of more than 100 Petabits per second-kilometer (equivalent to 100 million Gigabits per second-kilometer).

UUNET Kenya has completed the migration of its international Internet backbone from satellite to the SEACOM submarine cable.  The move also doubles the carrier’s bandwidth.

A submarine fiber optic cable linking mainland Colombia and the island of San Andres is scheduled to be in operation in one year, according to the Colombian government.

Tata Communications Transformation Services Limited (TCTS), a leading provider of business transformation, telecom BPO and consultancy services, announced that they have launched network operations center (NOC) operations, subsequent to SEACOM commissioning the 1.28 Tbps, 17,000-kilometer cable system. TCTS NOC has started managing the network administration, operations and maintenance functions of this SEACOM cable system, which connects the African continent to the rest of the world.

Allied Technologies Limited (Altech) has announced that it would increase its economic stake in Kenya Data Networks Limited (KDN) from 51% to 60.8% by investing a further USD39.5 million into the company. The capital injection will be used to roll out the KDN fiber optic network, further establishing KDN as the key provider of broadband in East Africa.

The Danice cable linking Iceland to mainland Europe has reportedly entered service.  Vodafone Iceland inaugurated the cable on September 1 by opening it for traffic for their costumers.

PIPE Networks Limited subsidiary, PIPE International (Australia) Pty Ltd has announced that PPC-1 has successfully completed another major milestone by transmitting Internet Protocol (IP) packets end to end between Australia and the USA via Guam.

Allied Technologies Limited (Altech) and SEACOM have announced a strategic alliance for the mutual acquisition of bandwidth capacity on two cable systems. The agreement sees Altech procuring two STM-16s from SEACOM, with the option to upgrade, within three years, to double this capacity, to an STM-64. SEACOM will in turn purchase six STM-64s throughout the East Africa region on the terrestrial backbone network owned by Kenya Data Networks (KDN), a subsidiary of Altech.

Singapore firm Ban Joo & Company plans to acquire two units of Telemedia Pacific Group that are building a submarine cable linking Hong Kong and Indonesia.

China’s Zhongtian Technology Submarine Cable Co., Ltd. (ZTT), has become the first Chinese submarine cable maker to gain certification from the Universal Joint Consortium (UJC).  The company said that the certification is the next step in its efforts to develop a deep-sea submarine cable system for the international market.

Alcatel-Lucent has signed -- in consortium with IT Telecom, Canada’s leading marine service provider with worldwide operations -- a contract with Antel Uruguay for a new submarine cable network linking Maldonado, Uruguay, to Las Toninas, Argentina.

The Palapa Ring submarine cable network for Indonesia may finally be getting off the ground.  The project, which has had a long and difficult development process, may begin in mid-October, according to published reports.

PIPE Networks Limited has announced a 46% increase in consolidated profit after tax for the year ended 30 June 2009 amounting $10.5 million. This result includes the combined results of subsidiaries including costs associated with construction of an undersea submarine fiber optic cable from Sydney to Guam.

SEACOM, Uganda Telecom Ltd (UTL) and Rwandatel S.A. (RTL) have announced a major partnership that further extends the reach of international broadband capacity across eastern Africa. Through concurrent deals, UTL and RTL, both subsidiaries of the Libyan Africa Portfolio LAP Green Networks, have purchased a significant amount of international broadband capacity from SEACOM whilst SEACOM has in turn secured a backhaul solution for Rwanda on the two regional players’ terrestrial networks between Kampala, Uganda and Kigali, Rwanda. Under the terms of the partnership agreement, both entities will have immediate access to the SEACOM network.

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications have asked the Bangladeshi government for permission to build a terrestrial fiber optic network through the country to reach India’s isolated northeastern states.

On October 2, 2009, the International Olympic Committee will name the winning city to host the 2016 Summer Olympics from between the four remaining candidates – Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.  The decision may not necessarily impact the submarine cable market, but it is worth keeping in mind that major sporting events such as the Olympics and FIFA World Cup have driven deployment of new submarine cable systems in the past.

UUNet Kenya has invested US$10 million to upgrade its core network, routing, transmission and security infrastructure as well as training, research and development aimed at delivering these solutions to its customers in a smooth and cost effective manner.

Globacom, the second national carrier in Nigeria, has landed its Glo-1 submarine cable in Lagos.  The landing marks the first time a private, international submarine cable has been landed in the country and when it enters commercial service in about six weeks it will greatly increase Nigerian customers’ options for Internet access.

The government of Seychelles is investigating various options to bring submarine cable connectivity to the island.

CSnet International, Inc. announced the formation of a strategic partnership to develop its modular, expandable Offshore Communication Backbone (OCB) concept.

Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited (TTCL) is now connected to the SEACOM international submarine fiber-optic cable system and is able to provide its customers with some of the fastest communication services in the country. TTCL chief executive officer Said A Said told local press recently that the company’s Internet traffic has been switched entirely to the cable effective 28 July 2009 – less than a week after the system was officially launched.

Tata Communications, a leading provider of a new world of communications, and Neotel, South Africa’s first converged communication national operator, have announced that they have launched service on the SEACOM cable system, the first undersea submarine cable system that will connect the African continent to Europe, Asia and India.

Two years after committing to the SEACOM project, Gateway Communications is live on the submarine fiber optic cable connecting Africa to Europe, Asia and the rest of the world. Gateway Communications was the first company to invest in SEACOM, which is bringing 1.28 Tbps of capacity to the continent.

Allied Technologies Limited (Altech), through its subsidiary Kenya Data Networks Limited (KDN), has announced the acquisition of an 8.5% stake in The East Africa Marine System Limited (TEAMS) cable for an amount of USD 11 million. The investment will give KDN a 10% voting right and an effective 8.5% equity stake in TEAMS. Altech will fund its portion of the purchase price from cash reserves.

With SEACOM, the first international submarine fiber optic cable to land on Sub-Saharan Africa’s East Coast now in service, Tanzania is looking to build out its terrestrial infrastructure.

Safaricom, one of Kenya’s biggest telecom carriers, has been conducting live testing on the TEAMS (The East African Marine System) cable prior to the cable entering full commercial service.

Australian Internet service provider Internode has launched its NakedExtreme services in Tasmania, creating the opportunity to fill in many metropolitan broadband blackspots.

The cost for Internet service using The East African Marine System (TEAMS) has yet to be decided on by most operators as the cable system is preparing to enter service.

Tata Communications, a leading provider of the new world of communications, together with its supplier, Tyco Telecommunications, a business unit of Tyco Electronics and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, have announced that they have completed the installation, testing and commissioning of the TGN-Intra Asia (TGN-IA) Cable System. Arriving at the conclusion of a comprehensive test program, which verified compliance with all transmission requirements, the companies have completed the final step in achieving regional and global connectivity in Southeast Asia for the TGN.

South African carrier Neotel says that the recent activation of the SEACOM East African submarine cable system has changed the dynamics of bandwidth in South Africa, calling it the “light at the end of the formerly narrow bandwidth tunnel.” 

The carrier noted that for years, South African businesses and consumers have faced the constraints of a lack of true broadband or bandwidth, as well as very high telecommunication costs. This has impacted on a number of industries reliant on cost-effective communications to be globally competitive. However, this has changed with the landing of SEACOM.

Kenya Data Networks has announced that it is slashing down its Internet prices by 90% after the successful launch of the SEACOM submarine fiber optic cable along the East Coast of Africa.

“Video streaming is now much faster and efficient you can actually see a video in real time as opposed to previously waiting for it to buffer for a while before one could view it,” said Mr. Bhavesh Mistry, KDN’s Chief Technical Officer. “Downloading movies and watching live web TV is now much easier and convenient.”

Hibernia Atlantic has announced that it has increased its sales force, hiring new team members throughout Amsterdam, London and Paris. The expansion of Hibernia’s sales force also includes the appointment of industry veteran Fergus Innes as Vice President of Sales, Europe.

Mr. Innes’ primary focus at Hibernia Atlantic will be to lead a team focused on driving Hibernia Atlantic’s cable transport services into the business, government and wholesale sectors throughout all of Europe.

Digital Tasmania, a consumer action group created to give a voice to the views and needs of Tasmanian consumers in the digital age, is calling for the building of a fourth submarine fiber optic cable to link Tasmania with the rest of Australia. 

Three cables – Bass Strait-1, Bass Strait-2 and Basslink – currently serve Tasmania.  Testra owns both Bass Strait cables, while Basslink Telecom owns the latter, which was activated just last month and broke Telstra’s monopoly on fiber connectivity to the rest of Australia.

The government of Samoa has released a report on the launching of the American Samoa-Hawaii (ASH) submarine cable. 

May 28, 2009, marked an important milestone for all the people of Samoa, to witness

Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved Decision No.1041/QD-TTg aiming to ensure Internet and mobile phone access for most of the country's islands.

Accordingly, the government will build fixed telephone facilities, public Internet access venues and satellite access stations on the islands. Under the new plan, most of the country's inhabited islands will have access to information and communications services by 2015.

Tele Greenland A/S has noted that its new submarine cable system, Greenland Connect, is one of the first such cables to be powered exclusively by “green” energy.

Since antiquity, Cyprus has been a major regional trading hub and it is continuing that tradition in telecommunications, with no less than three new submarine cables under development that will help move traffic between the eastern and western Mediterranean.

The Australian and Tasmanian Governments has announced the start of the first stage of the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Tasmania with the release of an open competitive tender for fiber optic cable by Aurora Energy.

AccessKenya Group has upgraded its internet core network by ten times from 1,000 Mbps to 10,000 Mbps at a cost of Kshs. 60 million as it gears to handle the huge bandwidth capacity upon the arrival of the SEACOM and Teams submarine cables.

According to published reports from India, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will shortly be selecting the vendor for setting up a submarine cable landing station in West Bengal.

According to published reports from India, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will shortly be selecting the vendor for setting up a submarine cable landing station in West Bengal.

eLandia, a leading technology enabler of emerging markets, has announced that it is joining Governor Togiola Tulafono and the people of American Samoa to inaugurate the undersea fiber-optic cable that now connects American Samoa and the Independent State of Samoa to Hawaii and the rest of the world.

Nine countries in eastern and southern Africa have granted landing station permits to the East Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) project that will provide broadband services to operators sometime next year.

 

Cypriot carrier PrimeTel, in cooperation with Reliance Globalcom, has completed the landing of the Hawk submarine fiber optic cable system, on Yeroskipou beach in Cyprus.

TeliaSonera International Carrier has yet again increased the possibilities for new and existing customers in the US to benefit from the availability of high quality IP services and the ability to connect to Europe’s largest and fastest growing IP backbone.

Carriers in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria have signed an agreement to build a terrestrial fiber optic cable network linking their countries and continuing on to Europe.

Further enhancing its comprehensive enterprise suite of services, United Arab Emirates carrier du has announced the launch of its fully managed and converged Global IP VPN services - a new product that offers global connectivity solutions for businesses in the UAE. Global IP VPN service will seamlessly connect du customers’ offices internationally via a fully resilient and secure global Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network.

Qtel and Vodafone Qatar have announced an agreement that will see Vodafone use the facilities of Qtel Data Center (QDC).

Level 3 Communications, Inc. has announced the availability of direct connectivity into global financial markets technology company BATS Europe, operator of a European Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF). This will give Level 3’s European financial services customers access to Level 3’s international Tier 1 backbone and low-latency trading execution from Europe to North America.

Gateway Business, a Vodacom Group company and leading supplier of African telecommunications services, has selected Cisco for its multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) network in Nigeria and across sub-Saharan Africa. This deployment means that Cisco technology solutions will drive an IP next generation network (NGN) for Gateway Business, employing intelligent MPLS technologies.

Global Crossing, a leading global IP solutions provider, has announced it has been selected to provide high-speed Internet connectivity for Broadcasting Center Europe (BCE), a European leader in technical services for the media and broadcasting sectors.

Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd. the leading telecom service provider of fixed-line, mobile and Internet services to residential and business customers in Taiwan, has announced that it will establish a wholly owned subsidiary in Mainland China.

Cable & Wireless Worldwide has announced the opening of its new regional headquarters in Dubai Internet City (DIC) to better serve its growing customer base in the Middle East and Africa. Following a three year presence in the region, the new office is further evidence of C&W Worldwide's continuing success in and commitment to the region.

Intel Corporation and MTN Group have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which will see the companies collaborate to accelerate the deployment and penetration of broadband access in Africa and the Middle East.

Tinet, formerly the carrier arm of Tiscali Group, the only global carrier exclusively committed to the IP and Ethernet wholesale market, has announced the addition of a new terrestrial route to its backbone between Hong Kong and Europe.

NTT Communications (NTT Com) has introduced an Inter-Data Center Connectivity Service that forms one of the pillars of NTT Com’s new strategy for expanding world-class ICT solutions and quality of service in Asia. The service will utilize a large-capacity backbone for high-speed, seamless rack-to-rack connectivity between core data centers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States. Applications for the Inter-Data Center Connectivity Service will be accepted from September.

NTT Communications (NTT Com) has announced that it will open premium data centers in Vietnam and Singapore and also launch a new service that enables enterprise customers to quickly establish seamless connectivity between core data centers under a major new strategy to expand business in the fast-growing Asian region.

Calix, Inc. has announced that service providers across the Caribbean have been rapidly deploying the Calix Unified Access portfolio to address advanced broadband services demand.

On July 29, KDDI will launch TELEHOUSE SHANGHAI and provide services in Shanghai, China. This will be KDDI's second TELEHOUSE brand enterprise in China following the Beijing opening. This move will mean that TELEHOUSE brand data centers have branched into 9 regions and 12 cities and cover 18 sites worldwide (approximately 113,000 square meters).

In a move that gives developing African nations access to better data networks, Internet Solutions, a division of Dimension Data, has announced the expansion of its MPLS network footprint into Uganda and Tanzania.

Demand for international Internet bandwidth continues to soar throughout the world.  A recent announcement out of India illustrates this trend, as an Indian carrier announced that it would purchase more than 25 Gbps of new submarine cable capacity.

With more than 15.5 gigabits per second of international data capacity linking Australia to the Internet globally, Australian Internet service provider Internode now maintains overseas points of presence in San Jose, Los Angeles and Ashburn in the United States, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Auckland, as well as the new POP in London. The recent network expansion has also established a direct link between Singapore and the new London POP, as well as new links from London to Internode POPs in the United States.

NTT Communications (NTT Com) has announced that its subsidiary NTT Communications (Thailand) Co., Ltd. has begun operating a branch office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia effective immediately. Headed by the concurrent president of NTT Communications (Thailand), Tsuyoshi Kawashima, the Phnom Penh Branch will provide multinational companies in Cambodia with ICT solutions from NTT Com.

Telecom Italia Sparkle, the international wholesale arm of Telecom Italia, is pleased to announce that its top-tier Internet backbone Seabone latest Point of Presence is now available in Catania, Sicily. First to connect to this new IP facility is CYTA, Cyprus’ leading carrier.

Level 3 Communications, Inc. has announced it has upgraded its ultra-low-latency fiber-optic network connection from London to Frankfurt. The upgrade significantly improves latency on this route as well as the Frankfurt-to-New York and Frankfurt-to-Chicago routes, enabling higher-speed transaction rates with very low transmission delays for financial exchanges and other trading venues.

While announcing its financial results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, Telkom South Africa spelled out its new strategic direction and noted many areas in which international submarine fiber optic cables were key to the company’s future development.

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) has strengthened its leadership position in the industry with the launch of its Global Ethernet services (GES).

Etisalat has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Korea Telecom (KT), a prominent South Korean integrated telecommunication service provider, to jointly develop innovative new age telecommunications solutions and collaborative services for customers. The partnership agreement was signed by Mr. Essa Al Haddad, Group Chief Marketing Officer at Etisalat and Mr. Hansuk Kim, Head of Global Business Unit, Korea Telecom.

A PCCW Global subsidiary, HKT Global (Singapore) Pte.Ltd., and Dialog Telekom, a major telecommunications service provider in Sri Lanka, have signed an Inter-Carrier-Interconnection (ICI) agreement to interconnect the companies' Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks. PCCW Global is a subsidiary of Hong Kong's premier telecommunications provider, PCCW Limited.

Qatar Foundation (QF) for Education, Science and Community Development, the pioneer in the nation’s drive to become an advanced knowledge-based society, has formally unveiled an advanced Ethernet project that will connect Qatar to a world of new educational opportunities.

Reliance Globalcom and Equinix, Inc., a provider of global data center services, have announced that Reliance Globalcom will extend its existing points-of-presence in Japan to include Equinix’s Toyko-2 (TY2) International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center. The expansion will enable Reliance Globalcom to improve the cost efficiency and capacity of IPv6-enabled global connectivity services to the 230 countries covered by its network footprint. It will also enable all of Equinix’s Tokyo customers to directly access Reliance Globalcom’s advanced VPLS network.

PrimeTel has become a member of the largest Internet Exchange in the world -- the German Internet Exchange (DE-CIX). PrimeTel is the first Cypriot company present on DE-CIX.

O3b Networks Ltd (O3b) has signed a long term agreement with Telecom Cook Islands for the provision of 155 megabits of bandwidth for Internet Connectivity to web users on the islands. The bandwidth will be supplied over O3b’s Medium Earth Orbit satellite constellation that is currently under construction.

Tata Communications (Hong Kong) Ltd, a wholly-owned indirect subsidiary of Tata Communications Ltd and the shareholders of China Entercom Communications Ltd (CEC) have jointly withdrawn their Equity Joint Venture application with the Chinese Government. Both organizations have mutually agreed to terminate the various agreements memorializing Tata Communications’ equity investment in CEC.

Interoute, owner operator of Europe s largest next generation network, is overturning decades of convention by enabling organizations to buy ICT infrastructure as a service.  With the launch of its Unified Connectivity offering, Interoute is changing the way enterprises buy network services and providing businesses with the flexibility to move, add and change their connectivity services at any time without penalty.

PCCW Global Limited, a subsidiary of Hong Kong's premier telecommunications provider, PCCW Limited, and Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL), Pakistan's leading national carrier, have signed a MPLS Inter-Carrier Interconnection (ICI) agreement to strengthen each other's network coverage and service availability.

BT has announced the launch of its Virtual Data Center (VDC) service in Brazil.  BT VDC aims at helping large business and public sector organizations succeed in the current economy and prepare for the future. It provides a dynamic and virtualized infrastructure platform that enables them to consume their IT and networking infrastructure as a service and forms the base for future cloud services. BT VDC offers servers, storage, networks and security that is orchestrated and automatically provisioned through its online portal. Customers can change the infrastructure easily in real-time throughout the duration of the contract through the portal. Customers can also rely on BT professional services to consult on most adequate configuration for the intended application.

Thai international carrier JasTel Network has announced plans to expand its international Internet gateways into other countries in the region.

Cable & Wireless (C&W) Worldwide has announced the rollout of two new Ethernet services to add to its suite of global networking services for businesses and carrier customers.

AT&T and Internet Initiative Japan Inc. (IIJ) have announced an agreement for IIJ to acquire AT&T Japan’s operations focused on domestic Japanese outsourcing services, including approximately 1,600 domestic Japanese business customers and approximately 250 AT&T employees who support these customers.  AT&T, through its existing local entities, will continue to serve the global needs of multinational corporations (MNCs) with operations in Japan.

Hibernia Media, formerly known as MediaXstream Inc., and a subsidiary of Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transatlantic high bandwidth connectivity provider, have announced that RTÉ, an Irish public service broadcaster, has selected Hibernia Media for high performance, fiber network capacity for international contribution links for its television news services and programs. Hibernia Media's diverse network footprint provides reliability and high capacity to RTÉ's news coverage and program making.

Cable & Wireless (C&W) Worldwide continues to strengthen its presence in the South Asian market with a host of new customer wins in the region. The company has today announced that it has secured major contracts with Sri Lanka Telecom in Sri Lanka and with Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) and Transworld Associates (TWA) in Pakistan. The company has also forayed into Bangladesh by winning a contract with one of the largest telecom operators in the country.

Verizon Global Wholesale is infusing its Optical Wave Service with various enhancements so carrier customers can diversify their services, offer new high-speed data links and leverage the value of highly reliable ring topologies.

Tinet, formerly the carrier arm of Tiscali Group, and NORDUnet, a joint collaboration by the five Nordic National Research and Education Networks, have announced NORDUnet's selection of Tinet's IP-Flow IP Transit service in Copenhagen, Denmark, for high speed IP Transit service.

Cable & Wireless (C&W) Worldwide has announced a strategic extension of its world-class network in Asia Pacific with the commissioning of its own backhaul network in Hong Kong. The network is already carrying live traffic for multinational customers.

Companies of all sizes are accelerating their use of IP networks, cloud and mobility services to help them rethink and transform the way they govern and conduct their business, Ron Spears, AT&T Business Solutions (ABS) President and CEO said on Tuesday, addressing more than 70 global industry analysts during a two-day conference hosted at AT&T’s world-renowned Network Operations Center in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) Q.S.C. has announced the successful closing of the General Syndication of its new US$2 billion dual tranche revolving credit facility. In the General Syndication Phase 17 additional banks joined with commitments of US$1.11 billion. The total subscribed amount of US$3.86 billion substantially exceeded the original target of US$1.5 billion.

BT has announced it would further increase its capabilities across Asia Pacific, to capture the dynamic business opportunities available in the fast-growing region.

NTT Europe, an ICT solutions partner and wholly owned subsidiary of NTT Communications (NTT Com), has announced the opening of a new PoP in Warsaw to provide extended reach of the Global IP Network into Eastern Europe. The new PoP is located in the LIM building and has begun serving customers this month.

Tata Communications has partnered with Infinity Africa, a licensed Data Services Provider in Tanzania, expanding the reach of Tata Communications’ IP network further into East Africa.  This follows the company’s establishment of a point of presence (Pop) in Kenya six months ago, further reinforcing its commitment to emerging markets.

As part of its on going infrastructure development, a Network Operations Center established by Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) facilitates a highly available, adaptable and fault resilient network, that can meet the market demand and ensures customer satisfaction, the company has announced.

Orange and Investec, a Tunisian subsidiary of the Mabrouk group, have announced the launch of Orange Tunisia in the presence of Didier Lombard, Chairman of France Telecom, and Marwan Mabrouk, Chairman and CEO of Investec. The new operator, which will officially open its doors to customers on May 5, will offer customers mobile, fixed and internet services, becoming the first genuine convergent telecommunications operator in the country, the company said in a statement.

Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) has announced the establishment of a wholly owned subsidiary in Vietnam via an investment of US$5.1 million. Operations are scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2010.

OJSC Rostelecom and JSC FGC UES have completed construction and launch for the commercial operation of the fiber-optic communication link linking Chelyabinsk and Khabarovsk., Russia.

Tinet, formerly the carrier arm of Tiscali Group and the only global carrier exclusively committed to the IP and Ethernet wholesale market, has announced at Markley Group’s Data Center & Telecom Networking Event, that it has selected Markley Group’s flagship data center facility at One Summer Street in Boston, Massachusetts as its latest network expansion location, further demonstrating Tinet’s commitment to its North American and global clients’ ever-increasing demands for IP and Ethernet services.

Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transatlantic high bandwidth connectivity provider, and Megatrade Communications Services, a telecommunications share group for the Canadian securities industry, have announced that Hibernia’s low latency Global Financial Network (GFN) is now available to all Megatrade members. With this new offering, Megatrade clients now have access to secure and diverse low latency connectivity solutions throughout Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe.

Tata Communications has announced a further expansion of its network into Russia via a local Moscow point of presence. As the brand sets its sights on the growing demand for telecom services in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), its local presence in this geography further reinforces its focus on emerging markets.

The Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) and Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) have entered into a landmark agreement in Islamabad for the provisioning of 10 Gigabit Premium Internet Bandwidth Connectivity. This is the largest Internet Backbone Connectivity ever acquired by any organization in Pakistan.

PCCW Global, a subsidiary of Hong Kong's premier telecommunications provider, PCCW Limited, has announced the opening of a new Point-of-Presence (PoP) at Telekom Malaysia Berhad's (TM) data center in Kuala Lumpur.

Tata Communications and Hibernia Media, a leading service provider for video transport and managed video services, has announced that they have partnered to provide a global solution for delivery of media services.

Internet and video content owners and content aggregators are increasingly looking to Verizon's expansive global network to leverage their success, pumping massive amounts of data across the network. Their content is now flowing at up to half a terabyte of data per second directly onto the Verizon network, speeding delivery and improving quality for end users.

True Internet Gateway has been renamed True International Gateway in a drive to strengthen its presence in regional markets, where it hopes to offer broadband services soon.

NTT Communications (NTT Com) has announced plans to establish points of presence (POP) for its Arcstar™ Global IP-VPN services in Penang, Malaysia; Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.; and Zurich, Switzerland to provide multinational companies with access to high-quality, cost-effective global managed network services in these key Asian, U.S. and European regional markets.

AT&T plans to invest approximately $1 billion in 2010 to scale its delivery of applications, mobility and cloud services for global companies, to expand small business services within the United States and to continue extending its network globally.  The plan includes the acquisition of more than 600 Gbps of new capacity on submarine cables worldwide.

NTT Com Asia, a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com), has announced the launch of Global Virtualization Service in Hong Kong. Leveraging on the global infrastructure of the parent company and its partnership with VMware, the new and expanded capabilities of its virtualization service will provide customers with a one-stop solution to managing and monitoring their global operations efficiently.

Interoute, owner of Europe’s largest next generation network, has announced that it has extended its pan-European fiber optic network into Istanbul, connecting Turkey to the heart of the EU. Despite the large numbers of European companies operating in Turkey, only a small number of providers cross the border into the EU, making options extremely limited for carriers and businesses. With Interoute’s fiber investment in Turkey, the provider becomes the only European operator to be able to provide high capacity connectivity direct from 26 European countries into Turkey’s dynamic business center.

ArmenTel has become the first telecommunication operator of Armenia to join the European Internet backbone via the Caucasus Cable System, ArmenTel press-service reports.  The new capacity will increase the total bandwidth of the company's network approximately by one-fourth.

International telecom giants Deutsche Telekom (DT) and Telefonica de Espana have separately announced restructuring plans to take advantage of new opportunities in growing markets.

Niue, a small South Pacific island covering only 260 square kilometers, has increased its Internet bandwidth from 1 Mbps to 4 Mbps.  Internet Users Society Niue, which provides Internet access to the island’s 1,400 people for free, will use the capacity to provide faster services, as well as extend its WiFi coverage to smaller villages.  The society also plans to acquire another 2 Mbps of capacity from an alternative satellite provider to serve as backup.

Internet access provider PowerTel Communications (Private) Limited has become the first company in landlocked Zimbabwe to connect to the global submarine cable network via a terrestrial fiber optic connection through Botswana.  PowerTel signed a two-year contract with Botswana Telecommunications Company (BTC) in a US$5 million deal in January.

A consortium of nine carriers from five countries is hoping to complete a fiber optic network connecting landlocked countries to East African submarine cables by the summer.

Bhutan Telecom (BTL) has announced that it is the first company from that country ever to provide international access using optical fiber cable. The commissioning of this international fiber link extending from Phuentsholing to a PoP at Telehouse East in London via Mumbai is considered a landmark achievement compared to the company’s first international telecommunication link through a satellite system in the early 1990s.

Pacnet, Asia’s leading independent telecommunications service provider, has announced the expansion of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) services to major cities across the region, improving network performance and enabling businesses to simplify network management while avoiding the impending exhaustion of IPv4 addresses.

Tata Communications has reported impressive growth in the last fiscal year and plans continued investment momentum for the upcoming year.

NTT Communications (NTT Com), a global ICT solutions provider, and Company TTK (also known as TransTelekom), the operator of Russia’s largest fiber-optic network, have announced the interconnection of NTT Com’s Arcstar™ Global IP-VPN and TTK’s IP-VPN services in Russia, as well as the availability of Arcstar Global IP-VPN service nationwide.

Etisalat, a leading carrier in the Middle East, has announced an agreement with Global Crossing, a leading global IP solutions provider, to provide seamless connectivity alternatives to customers who want to expand their connectivity to the United States, Canada and Latin America from the United Arab Emirates.

Russian carrier TransTelekom (TTK) has commenced a large-scale project to double the capacity of its backbone DWDM network, the EurasiaHighway, which crosses the entire breadth of the Russian Federation, by mid-2010. Ultimately, this network upgrade will allow TTK to increase its overall protected capacity to up to 1.6 Tbps and its total unreserved capacity to 3.2 Tbps.

Switch and Data, a leading provider of network-neutral data center and Internet exchange services, has announced that Hibernia Atlantic’s Global Financial Network (GFN), a next generation multi-gigabit, high-speed exchange connectivity platform, has become part of Switch and Data’s GeoReach Program in North Bergen, New Jersey. Hibernia’s GFN provides a fiber network which is dedicated to global capital markets across all asset classes in the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Pacific Rim.

Interoute, owner operator of Europe’s largest next generation network, has announced that it has extended its pan-European network into Ireland to meet demand from multinational enterprises looking for connectivity in the region.  The new Dublin point of presence (PoP), which is live and fully operational, provides businesses with resilient, high quality voice and data services and a fast and reliable bridge to the rest of Europe.

NTT America, a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com) and a global IP network services provider, expects that demand for Internet capacity worldwide will continue to grow due to broadband availability.

Russian carrier TransTelekom (TTK) has announced it has been awarded a contract by Eurovision to help transmit the HDTV signal for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver from central Europe into and throughout the Russian Federation. Tens of millions of viewers are expected to tune in across Russia to top TV stations Channel 1 and Channel Russia, and TTK will be responsible for delivering an uninterrupted, HD-quality and frequently live signal from the Eurovision’s points of presence (PoPs) in Frankfurt and Helsinki to Moscow. The project will involve provisioning of new STM-1 and STM-4 capacity leased lines between these locations.

NTT Communications (NTT Com) announced today that it has significantly increased the data transmission speed of its Global IP Network between the United States and Japan to an industry-leading 300 Gbps, further enhancing the company’s leadership in Tier-1 transpacific IP connectivity.

Tianjin TIS Hi-tech Information System Service Co., Ltd., an affiliate of TIS Inc., a subsidiary of IT Holdings Corporation, has announced the signing of a business alliance with Pacnet Business Solutions (China), a business unit of the leading regional telecommunications service provider, Pacnet, to jointly develop a new data center facility in Tianjin, China.

Tata Communications has unveiled its largest data center in the country. Spread across nearly 55,000 net square feet, the data center would offer services including co-location, managed hosting and storage and a suite of complementary services including managed security services and CDN services. The Pune IDC will reside on Tata Communications’ Tier-1 IP backbone enabling it to provide high capacity Internet, MPLS and global Ethernet services.

Vodacom Business has announced that its customers will pay up to 50% less for their international Internet connectivity (local internet access portion included), making it amongst the lowest prices for fully restored Internet access services in South Africa.  The cost reduction comes about thanks to the proliferation of new submarine cable systems serving South Africa.

Gateway Communications will continue to invest in infrastructure in East Africa, while at the same time moving closer to complete its vision of a national MPLS network for Nigeria.

Russian telecommunications company TransTeleKom (TTK) has concluded the next upgrade of its IP-MPLS-backbone Points of Presence (PoPs) in Moscow. The two T1600 routers by Juniper Networks were installed at mutually reserved PoPs, with each unit supporting 80 10 Gbps ports, resulting in a doubling of capacity at each PoP.

In the last five years, Vietnam’s telephone and Internet density have grown 428% and 1,777%, respectively, according to the country’s Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC).

Pacnet has announced that it has obtained a Network Service Provider (NSP) license from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), paving the way for businesses and carriers in Malaysia to access high bandwidth international network connectivity solutions backed by Pacnet’s extensive subsea cable network.

Bharti Airtel has announced a strategic partnership with Limelight Networks® for Content Delivery Network (CDN) services in the Indian market place. The partnership will help Limelight Networks® to expand its access in one of the fastest growing CDN markets and enable its customers, access to Bharti Airtel’s state-of-the-art IP network in India. With this agreement, Bharti Airtel will now be able to offer Indian content producers, industry-leading solutions for the delivery of rich media and enterprise applications, as well as direct access to consumers accessing the Internet, over 900 last mile networks that are directly connected to Limelight Networks’ global platform.

NTT Communications (NTT Com) has announced its further expansion in China with the opening of a new branch office in Wuhan, Hubei Province in February and the launch of a new point of presence (POP) for its Arcstar™ Global IP-VPN managed network services in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. The Wuhan office is a milestone for NTT Com as the first branch office of a global telecommunications company in the city.

Hibernia Atlantic’s Global Financial Network (GFN), a next generation multi-gigabit, high-speed connectivity platform, has added Interxion's London Proximity Data Center to its GFN multi-market footprint.

Gibtelecom, the leading telecommunications provider in Gibraltar, and Interoute, owner operator of a state of the art European next generation network, have deployed an alternative telecommunications route to Gibraltar, offering high capacity connectivity between the Rock and the rest of Europe.

Tinet, formerly the carrier arm of Tiscali Group and the only global carrier exclusively committed to the IP and Ethernet wholesale market, and China Telecom (Europe) Ltd., the subsidiary of China Telecommunications Corporation, China’s principal telecom operator and comprehensive information provider and owner of the world's largest fixed-line communication network, have announced that China Telecom’s partnership with Tinet for International Ethernet Private Line service.

Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) and KVH, market leaders in low latency services in Singapore and Japan, respectively, have announced that they have signed an agreement to jointly develop and operate an ultra low latency and fully redundant network service between Singapore and Japan for the financial trading community.

Bharti Airtel Limited has announced strategic organizational changes with the objective to enhance its focus on expanding operations to international markets beyond India and South Asia and further consolidate its leadership position in India.

Cable & Wireless (C&W) is building its infrastructure services and strengthening its partnership agreements in China, to continue the company’s significant growth in the region.

KDDI Corporation, FPT Information System (FIS), the largest system integrator (SI) in Vietnam, and ITX, which is expanding its telecommunications service business, have established the joint venture Telehouse Vietnam, reached an agreement to develop the data center business, and concluded a contract among share holders.

Qtel and Tata Communications have jointly announced the launch of enterprise network services, enabling a range of dedicated Ethernet services to be offered to customers seeking connectivity in Qatar and globally. The partnership enables Qtel to extend its reach by offering Layer-2 Global Ethernet services into and out of Qatar, while Tata Communications can now extend its global network coverage across the region.

Verizon has invested more than $17 billion this year in its wireless and wireline networks in the U.S. and internationally.  The Verizon global IP network serves more than 2,700 cities in 159 countries, and its wireless network reaches approximately 289 million Americans.

Pacnet has launched Pacnet SmartTransport, Asia’s first international private line service with flexible protection options to address the growing demand for uninterrupted network connectivity.

Global Crossing has announced the completion of its Data Center expansion in Santiago.  The company has substantially improved the power generation capacity at these facilities located in the district of Huechuraba.

NTT Communications (NTT Com) has announced plans to establish a point of presence (POP) for its Arcstar™ Global IP-VPN managed network service in Chennai, India and also to interconnect the service with an IP-VPN service operated by Telecom New Zealand (TNZ) in New Zealand.

Telecom Italia Sparkle extends the reach of SEABONE, its global 1.5 Tbps IP backbone, into the heart of the Balkans through the opening of its latest points of presence in Bucharest, Romania and Istanbul, Turkey.

On December 14, Verizon became the first telecommunications carrier to successfully deploy a commercial 100G (gigabits per second) ultra-long-haul optical system for live traffic. This system was deployed on the company's European optical core network between Paris and Frankfurt. The accomplishment marks the first time for deployment of ultra-long-haul 100G using a single channel on a production network.

Telstra International, a leading global provider of managed network solutions, today unveiled a series of initiatives to deepen its connectivity in key Asian growth markets in Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia. As well, the company announced that it has reinforced its dual-PoP strategy to provide enhanced diversity to its network coverage. Together, the expanded connectivity and diverse network coverage address the growing need to support customers with an advanced business continuity capability.

Equinix, Inc., a provider of global data center services, today announced that PIPE International (Australia), a wholly-owned subsidiary of PIPE Networks has selected Equinix as a key interconnect provider for its new PIPE Pacific Cable (PPC-1) undersea cable. Through Equinix Sydney-1 (SY1) International Business Exchange(TM) (IBX(R)) data center located in its Sydney campus, Equinix will provide PIPE with convenient, secure and cost-effective access to the aggregation of Australia's leading carriers operating within the center.

Telehouse Europe, KDDI Group's European local subsidiary, has opened its new data center Telehouse Cape Town in Cape Town, Republic of South Africa. This is the first data center opened by a Japanese telecommunications carrier in Africa.

Gateway Communications has been awarded three new licenses, including the Network Facilities Provider (NFP) Tier 2 License by the Communications Commission of Kenya. The new licenses further Gateway’s drive to build a pan-African connectivity network that covers every major African city, based on satellite, submarine cable and terrestrial (fiber) infrastructure.

Telkom South Africa has launched its latest state-of-the-art green data center, called Bellville 2, in Cape Town under a new brand offering called Cybernest.

Kenya Data Networks (KDN) has begun a 700-kilometer terrestrial fiber optic cable project from Thika to Mombasa.  The new network will provide redundancy for KDN’s existing Mombasa-Nairobi link.  Construction on the new cable will be completed in the spring of 2010.

Telstra International has announced further expansion of its global data center network. The new multi-million pound facility in Woking, UK, will provide an additional 10,000 square feet of hosting space for Telstra International’s customers worldwide. It is due to open in the fourth quarter of 2009.

AccessKenya Group, Kenya’s first publicly listed ICT company and Kenya’s leading data services provider, has announced that it has achieved its year end customer target numbers nearly two months ahead of schedule, with 3,000 customers now signed up to its residential broadband service and over 3,100 customers now contracted for its leading corporate broadband service, Broadband Max.

This year's FIFA Confederations Cup, played last June in South Africa, saw 100% broadcast efficiencies being enabled by the backbone ICT infrastructure that was provisioned by Telkom South Africa.  The event was a key test of the carrier’s readiness for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, also to be held in South Africa.

Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transatlantic submarine transport cable provider, and Equinix, Inc., a provider of global data center services, has announced the expansion of its Global Financial Network (GFN) into the Equinix New York-2 (NY2) and New York-4 (NY4) International Business Exchange (IBX®) data centers in Secaucus, New Jersey. This expansion further drives Hibernia Atlantic’s redundancy within the New York metro area and reinforces the company’s commitment to provide reliable connectivity to its financial customers, bypassing major congestion points located within major metro city centers. This link into Equinix Financial eXchange, a neutral electronic marketplace of active market participants located in the NY2 and NY4 centers, is also a much-desired route for financial exchange traffic, moving from Chicago to Secaucus (bypassing Manhattan when and if necessary) and across the Atlantic Ocean to Slough, UK (bypassing London when and if necessary as well).

Arbinet Corporation has announced that leading mobile provider and Nicaraguan PTT, Enitel (Empresa Nicaragüense de Telecomunicaciones), will use Arbinet’s new wholesale Carrier Service interface for termination and origination of international calls. Enitel will benefit from Arbinet’s scale, global reach and sophisticated routing capabilities to deliver high quality, lower cost international calling to its customers in Nicaragua. Arbinet gains reliable, high quality termination capacity in Nicaragua for its retail and wholesale customers.

Interoute, owner operator of one of Europe’s largest next generation voice and data network, and Juniper Networks Inc, the leader in high performance networking, have announced that an extra 9.5 Terabits of capacity has been added to Interoute’s pan European IP network. The upgrade is in response to increased Internet traffic from ISPs, content providers and enterprise customers, which led to Interoute experiencing IP traffic doubling every 12 months.

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM), Malaysia’s leading integrated information and communications group, recently signed a partnership agreement with Global Crossing, a leading global IP solutions provider, to join Global Crossing’s Global Partner Program (GPP).

AT&T announced that it has completed its acquisition of Centennial Communications Corp. The acquisition enhances AT&T’s network coverage across the Midwest and Southeast United States and in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Tinet, formerly the carrier arm of Tiscali Group and the only global carrier exclusively committed to the IP and Ethernet wholesale market, and CAT Telecom Public Company Limited (CAT), the Thai state-owned telecommunications company, have announce CAT’s selection of Tinet’s IP-Flow IP Transit service in key cities in Europe. The additional ports in these European markets provide CAT additional global reach for communications to and from Thailand.

AT&T has announced that it has extended the AT&T network through a new node in Kuwait City.  The new node will provide AT&T’s global customers with improved connectivity in the Middle East and allow local Kuwaiti companies better access to global markets via AT&T’s worldwide network.

NTT Communications (NTT Com) has announced Biz Hosting Global, a virtual hosting service with globally unified virtualization features, which will be launched through premium data centers in the United States, Europe and Hong Kong from January 2010 and in Singapore at a later date.

Interoute has announced that it has expanded its network to Moscow in response to a surge in demand from enterprises looking for connectivity in the region.  The new Point of Presence (PoP) in Moscow is providing businesses and service providers alike with fast, cost effective access to the rest of Europe and resilient, high quality voice and data services to support their operations.  Interoute’s network expansion provides Russia with part of the infrastructure investment it is seeking as it strives to diversify its economy away from oil, its largest and most volatile export.

Bharti Airtel has announced the launch of Ethernet services in more than 25 global cities across Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. As a promotional offer, Bharti Airtel is offering 'One Capacity One Price' to US, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong to both the Enterprise and Wholesale customers. The launch of the Global Ethernet Service Portfolio by Bharti Airtel is part of its strategy to become a truly global service provider with wide range of product offerings.

In another example of the growing demand for Internet bandwidth, BT has revealed plans to more than double the availability of its fastest fiber broadband service. The company said it now plans to deliver speeds of up to 100 Mbps – the fastest in the UK – to around 2.5 million UK homes and businesses using fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) technology. This has the capacity to deliver far greater speeds in the future – of up to 1Gbps – should there be commercial demand.

Rostelecom, Russian national telecommunications operator, a member of Svyazinvest group of companies, touted its Asia-Europe network at the recent ITU TELECOM World 2009.

Brymedia West Africa Limited, one of the bidders for Nigerian national carrier Nitel, has proposed building a terrestrial fiber optic cable across Nigeria, across Niger and Algeria, to Tunisia as an alternative to submarine cables.

Etisalat has announced a further expansion of its global IP VPN initiative by signing a partnership agreement with China Telecom to enhance connectivity options for customers from UAE and China.

Verizon is transforming its global network into a single, higher-capacity platform that combines optical transport with advanced packet-switching technology.

NTT America, a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com) and a Tier-1 global IP network services provider, has announced company executives spoke and moderated panels at the recent Capacity Central America 2009 conference in Panama.

Undersea meshing creates additional paths to seamlessly reroute traffic in the event of multiple undersea cable breaks or network disruptions.  Verizon Business was the first service provider to offer seven-way diversity for services traversing cable systems in the Atlantic and Pacific.  The meshing is made possible by installing communications equipment in network facility buildings linked to the submarine cables.

The Executive Board of Directors of the World Bank Group has announced its endorsement of the $215 million, ten-year Central African Backbone Program (CAB Program). This program will support the countries of the Central African region in developing their high-speed telecommunications backbone infrastructure to increase the availability of high-speed Internet and reduce end-user prices. The CAB Program will also help countries harmonize the laws and regulations that govern the ICT sector to increase private sector investment and improve competition.

Level 3 Communications, Inc. and Internet2 have announced an expanded relationship to provide transatlantic and U.S. network connectivity for United States. LHCNet. The network will transport data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a massive particle accelerator spanning the French-Swiss border, to more than 1,700 scientists at 94 institutions across the United States.

TELEHOUSE America, the United States’ leading provider of dedicated data centers, international Internet exchanges and managed IT services, has announced today the global availability of TELEHOUSE-branded data centers in 17 cities throughout Asia, North America and Europe.  Companies requiring global data center solutions, connectivity and managed services can now contact global TELEHOUSE team for facility space and power in any of the TELEHOUSE-branded facilities located in France, The United Kingdom, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.  This announcement comes on the heels of TELEHOUSE America’s announcement launching its ubiquitous IP Transit services and the availability of its Global Interlink US-Europe Ethernet connectivity solutions between its major data centers in the United States and Europe.

TeliaSonera International Carrier is now offering 40 Gbps Wavelength on its existing DWDM network in Europe.

Telecom Italia Sparkle, a leading global telecommunications service provider and CDNetworks, a top tier, full-service global content delivery network, have announced a strategic partnership that enables Telecom Italia Sparkle to provide content delivery services to customers across Europe. The strategic partnership expands Telecom Italia Sparkle’s service portfolio with the addition of CDNetworks’ full suite of advanced content delivery solutions for media delivery, content acceleration, and software and other file downloads.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) has announced the signing of a syndicated revolving credit facility, following the closing of the general syndication phase of the US$1.5 billion facility that was closed in March 2009.  The general syndication, which was launched at US$1.5 billion, was to provide existing and new lenders to Qtel an opportunity to join the facility. The Facility was oversubscribed by more than 100 percent and the final facility size was increased to US$ 2 billion.

NTT Communications (NTT Com) has announced it will establish NTT Communications Philippines Corporation (NTT Com Philippines) as a wholly owned subsidiary in Manila to provide system integration, security solutions and other ICT services from October 1.

Telefonica has opened new operational units in 15 European countries to further enhance the integrated telecommunications services it offers Multinational Corporations across the region. As well as strengthening its international network capabilities, Telefonica also unveiled a new suite of solutions for corporate customers, including the new Telefonica Multinational Solutions web portal, now live at: www.multinationalsolutions.telefonica.com.

The Myanmar Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) and the Telecommunication Organization of Thailand (TOT) have completed the building of a terrestrial fiber optic network between the two countries.

KDDI will establish a local subsidiary in Shanghai. KDDI Shanghai will begin operations on October 15, 2009.

Tata Communications has announced that it has extended its Ethernet service portfolio into China, with immediate availability. Tata Communications will provide market-leading Ethernet services to global enterprises and carriers wanting to connect China with major global business centers worldwide, and builds on its existing MPLS and IPLC capabilities in the country.

Through an alliance and proven network interoperability with Beijing-based value-added telecoms services and integrated IT solutions provider China Enterprise Communications (CEC), Tata Communications now offers the reliability, security, flexibility, and manageability of its Dedicated Ethernet and Priority Ethernet line of services into the Chinese market. Many companies today use Tata Communications’ MEF certified Ethernet services to simplify their network and reduce their costs. Now the superior Ethernet capabilities of Tata Communications are also available to China, adding to the existing footprint of over 200 cities across 31 on-net countries.

The service will provide global point to point, point to multipoint, and multipoint Ethernet coverage to China’s largest business centers of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, with the option of either PoP-to-PoP or end-to-end service guarantees.

James Walker, Tata Communications’ Vice President for Global VPN Services, sees the service’s launch as a milestone.

"With the extension of coverage into China, Tata Communications is no longer just the leader in global Ethernet services– we ace the competition in Asia Pacific too. China is the world’s fastest growing trading nation and combined with our deep coverage in India, Tata Communications is providing Ethernet coverage into two of the most dynamic economies in the world and onwards to all major business locations in 31 countries. We are pleased that our suite of advanced connectivity solutions will play a pivotal role in the continued growth of China and India," said Walker.

Ms. Sun Yinghong, China Enterprise Communication’s Chief Operating Officer of CEC, said, "This partnership allows us to build on our extensive network reach to link even more Chinese MNCs to the world through superior Ethernet services. Innovative solutions go further with meaningful alliances, and we have greatly benefited from our collaboration with Tata Communications."

Tata Communications’ Ethernet service portfolio has points of presence in the US, Canada, 13 European countries, Russia, Qatar, UAE, South Africa, and now 12 countries in Asia Pacific, with new locations being added regularly.

Afghan Telecom (AT), Afghanistan’s first long distance domestic private leased circuit and international private leased circuit provider through optical fiber cable, has announced a significant agreement with Roshan to sell the transmission capacity of its national fiber optic backbone ring network. The network, constructed by AT, will complement Roshan’s existing infrastructure, enabling Roshan to ensure the redundancy of its network and provide additional capacity for its growing number of subscribers.

Nigerian carrier Phase3 Telecom, has signed an agreement with the Republic of Benin to extend its fiber optic cable network across West Africa.

Neotel has officially moved its head office in Gauteng. The Neotel Midrand Campus is situated at Old Pretoria Road, Midrand.

Telefonica and China Unicom have entered into a strategic alliance agreement pursuant to which the parties agreed that they would cooperate in various business areas such as the joint acquisition of infrastructure and equipment for customers, the joint development of wireless service platforms, the joint provision of services to multinational enterprises, roaming, R&D, the sharing of best practices and technical, operational and management expertise, the joint development of a set of strategic initiatives within the framework of network and technology development, as well as establish an exchange program for their managers.

In response to rapidly growing customer demand for premium data center facilities and services, NTT America, a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of NTT Communications Corporation, today announced the addition of a second data center in the Silicon Valley Area of California. This addition expands NTT America’s premium data center space in Silicon Valley by 15,000 square feet.

Telstra International, a leading global provider of managed networked solutions, has announced further expansion of its global data center network. The new multi-million pound facility in Woking, United Kingdom, will provide an additional 10,000 square feet of hosting space for Telstra International's customers worldwide. It is due to open in Q4 2009.

Russian carrier TransTelekom (TTK) has announced the completion of a project with Delta Telecom, one of the biggest Internet providers in Azerbaijan, which saw it upgrade the company’s IP bandwidth access to the global Internet to 2.5 Gbps.

Pacnet has announced that it has entered into a partnership with Office Squared, a subsidiary of Servcorp, a world leader in the serviced office industry, to provide Internet-based solutions to tenants at the Singapore-Hangzhou Science and Technology Park.

Global Crossing Limited has announced that it intends to offer $650 million of its senior secured notes due 2015 in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers in accordance with Rule 144A and Regulation S under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"). The purpose of the offering is to refinance Global Crossing's existing term loan facility, to fund the purchase of senior notes issued by GC Impsat Holdings I Plc and to raise capital for general corporate purposes.

Alcatel-Lucent has announced that it has further strengthened its working relationship with Telecomunicacoes de Mocambique (TDM), the Mozambican state-owned telecommunications company, by signing a 21 million Euro contract to deploy the third phase of Mozambique's national transmission network.

A decade after the Global Operations Center first opened its doors, Telstra's networks continue to receive around-the-clock attention thanks to a vision and commitment to technology leadership that are still the industry benchmarks today.

Telecom Italia Sparkle, a leading provider of international telecommunication services, and MIX (Milano Internet Exchange), the largest Italian Internet Exchange Point, announced that they have entered into a partnership agreement.

Verizon Business has extended availability of its comprehensive on-demand, "cloud-based" Computing as a Service (CaaS) solution to the company's Amsterdam data center.  The announcement reinforces the company's strategy of expanding cloud-computing deployment resources around the globe to meet the stringent security, performance regulatory requirements of business customers.

Telstra International, a global provider of managed network services, has expanded its range of Ethernet Wide Area Network (WAN) services to provide customers with a complete range of Ethernet connectivity options across Asia, Europe and the US. The offering, available throughout 12 countries, will enable multinational companies to expand their international reach and establish scalable connections with regional offices around the world.

Reliance Communications and China Telecom have announced the opening of the first direct terrestrial cable link between the Chinese and Indian domestic markets.

Telecom engineer and current Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria’s telecom regulator Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Engr. Ernest Ndukwe, has advocated the concept of "Fibre Without Borders” (FWB) as panacea for achieving possible African telecom revolution in terms of seamless telecommunications connectivity, quick, and affordable broadband access to the citizenry.

It was not related to a submarine cable cut, but a recent outage suffered by Paypal global network demonstrates the financial impact of the loss of Internet access in today’s economy.

Pacnet has announced that CDP Group, a leading human resource (HR) one-stop solution provider in China, has selected Pacnet to provide business-grade Internet connectivity to support its HR outsourcing services.

Bharti Airtel has unveiled its Global Wholesale Service Portfolio with a network that will reach 50 countries across the continents of Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Australia. Bhart Airtel’s portfolio will enable the global carrier community access to Bharti Airtel’s services to and from any part of the globe. This expanded connectivity has come on the back of investments of over USD 500 million made on building cable capacity, network infrastructure and international Points of Presence.

Neotel, in partnership with fellow South African carrier Infraco, is expanding connectivity into the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

Tinet, formerly the carrier arm of Tiscali Group, and the only global carrier exclusively committed to the IP and Ethernet wholesale market, has announced further expansion of its operations in North America.

In the last quarter, the company added 25 long haul backbone circuits across the U.S. and opened three additional network Points of Presence (PoPs) in Newark, New Jersey, Dallas, Texas and Denver, Colorado.

TTK recently announced the preliminary results of its “Development Strategy for 2008-2015.” TTK’s Board of Directors adopted the Strategy in February 2008.

TTK Development Strategy suggested the development of retail broadband Internet access in Russian regions, provision of local and Long Distance Calls telephony and other retail telecommunication services. By 2015, TTK aims to control 17% of Russian regional fixed telecommunications retail market. Plans are to service more than 2 million households.

Russian telecom carrier TransTelekom (TTK) announced it has concluded an agreement with UniCredit Bank CJSC (the Russian branch of UniCredit Group) that approves the provision of a bi-currency loan of US$83 million. Under the terms of the agreement, which is made up of two separate amounts of US$35.5 million and 1.545 billion Russian rubles, TTK has three years to pay back the loan.

TTK is the operator of Russia’s one of the largest fiber-optic networks, including a submarine cable linking the Russian Far East to Japan.

Telecom Italia Sparkle, a leading global telecommunication service provider, and Mobile Tele Systems (MTS), the largest mobile phone operator in Russia and the CIS, have established a direct connection to be used for international voice traffic.

Companies are releasing their latest quarterly for the period ending June 30.  The following are some of the results for companies involved in the submarine cable industry.

VNPT Thanh Hoa, in cooperation with the Vietnam Data Communications Company (VDC), a unit of Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), has officially opened an Internet data center in Thanh Hoa province.

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) recently signed a business partnership agreement with CPCNet Hong Kong Limited (CPCNet), a wholly owned subsidiary of CITIC 1616 Holding Limited to provide CPCNet with managed ICT services including Multi Protocol Label Switching Virtual Private Network (MPLS VPN), Metro-E and Managed Customer Premise Equipment (CPE).

Telstra and Nortel have successfully completed world-first trials of next generation 100 Gbps and 40 Gbps transmission over the longest distances ever attempted.

A continuous 2,038-kilometer fiber optic link between Adelaide and Sydney was used for the 100 Gbps trial, while the 40 Gbps trial took place over 3,370 kilometers on a looped-back section of the Sydney to Adelaide route. Both trials used Nortel optical technology on existing Telstra fiber.

Akamai Technologies, Inc., the leader in powering rich media, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, has announced the release of the first quarter 2009 edition of its quarterly State of the Internet report available for download at www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet.  Leveraging information gathered from its network and published reports, Akamai's quarterly report provides insight into key Internet statistics such as origin of attack traffic, network and Web site outages and Internet connectivity levels across the globe.

Global Crossing has announced the opening of its Amsterdam data center. The newly constructed data center, which already houses clients such as Dimension Data, provides virtual hosting solutions as well as hosted managed services.

Hibernia Atlantic, a wholly owned subsidiary of Columbia Ventures Corporation, has announced that it has proposed to build the Project Kelvin telehouse in Fort George, Londonderry.

Kenya Data Networks and her sister company in Uganda, Infocom, can now boast of seamless connectivity between Mombasa, Kenya, and Kampala, Uganda.

AT&T and Denmark’s TDC have announced an agreement to jointly develop and deploy global service bundles and networking solutions for multinational companies, either headquartered or doing business in the Nordics, a region considered to be among the most technologically advanced and competitive in the world.

The following is the latest status on submarine fiber optic cable outages throughout the world.

E-Marine has announced a maintenance and storage agreement with the East African Submarine System (EASSy), a fiber-optic cable that will greatly improve access to high-performance Internet, business and mobile-phone data services in twenty-one African nations.

Subsea service specialist Offshore Marine Management (OMM) has secured the former AEI Cables site in Kent from its landowners, South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), for the establishment of a new cable storage, cable plant and key component spares that will act as an industry operational base.

A fault on a submarine fiber optic cable in Hawaii caused loss of Internet, phone and cable television services on some islands for up to 12 hours.  Although service has been restored using other cables, it could be five weeks until the cable is repaired and the cause of the fault is determined.

Global Marine Systems is launching ‘Predator,’ a new Inspection class ROV, at HydroVision International (27th-30th July 2010), in Charlotte, North Carolina.

German grid operator transpower stromübertragungs gmbh has awarded subsea cable specialist Offshore Marine Management (OMM) the contract to install the HVAC cables connecting the Bard Offshore 1 and BorWin alpha platforms for the BorWin1 project.

SEACOM has announced that all repairs to its East African submarine fiber optic cable have been successfully completed.

A guard vessel is now in operation on the Sheringham Shoal Offshore Wind Farm to ensure the safety of marine traffic around the foundation installation sites and along the export cable corridor.

During the course of last week, SEACOM, owner of the East Africa submarine cable system that suffered a failure on July 3 reportedly due to a faulty repeater, has continued to work closely with its partners to roll-out the repair work program and restoration alternatives necessary to maintain adequate connectivity during this process.

As the SEACOM fault enters its second week, the impact on Internet services in East Africa is becoming to become apparent.  Various reports coming out of countries impacted by the outage indicate that those carriers and Internet service providers (ISP) that had invested in backup capacity have come through the outage fairly well.

Subsea service specialist, Offshore Marine Management (OMM) has instructed independent marine design consultancy BMT Nigel Gee to design a unique operation and maintenance vessel for the next phase of offshore wind farm development.

SEACOM's technical team has identified the exact location of the fault that occurred on July 5 and the company reports that the repair process has been fully mobilized. The faulty section of the cable is at one of the deepest points along its route, some 4,700m deep. This may require for robotics to be deployed to locate and retrieve the cable for repairs to be undertaken on board the specialized repair ship before replacing the cable back on the ocean floor.

At 09:19 GMT, 5 July 2010, SEACOM experienced a submarine failure resulting in service downtime between Mumbai and Mombasa. Current investigations indicate that a repeater has failed on segment 9 of the SEACOM cable, which is offshore to the north of Mombasa. This unexpected failure affects traffic towards both India and Europe. Traffic within Africa is not affected.

Blue Offshore and Caley Ocean Systems have announced the commencement of the design of an innovative cable installation system for delivery by the spring of 2011. The system features a unique flexible modular basket carousel, which enables the carousel to have variable carrying capacities to suit the project requirements. The flexibility and modularity of the system will reduce costs and risks to customers through shorter mobilization and demobilization periods, flexible cable loading schedules and allows for increased choice in cable installation methodologies.

Global Marine Systems (GMS) has announced the availability of its new 7,000 ton turntable, specifically designed to handle the longer distances and greater weights required by the latest round of offshore wind farm projects. The purpose-built turntable has been mobilized on the AMT Explorer and is the latest example of how the 160 year old company continues to ramp up its investment in and commitment to the European offshore energy market.

NorGer KS, the company behind the first planned Norway-Germany interconnector, is working in partnership with UK-based subsea cable specialists, Offshore Marine Management (OMM) as its offshore cable consultancy, having appointed them late last year. NorGer KS is owned equally by the Norwegian energy utilities Agder Energi AS and Lyse Produksjon AS and the Swiss company Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft Laufenburg (AG) and was established to plan, construct and operate a 600 kilometer high voltage DC connection between Norway and Germany.

John Van Kuyk, a business development manager with more than 25 years experience in the offshore oil and gas industry, has been brought in as the new Business Development Manager with subsea cable specialists, Offshore Marine Management.

Global Marine Systems, the largest independent provider of submarine cable installation, maintenance and related engineering services worldwide, has been awarded a gold award for the seventh consecutive year by The Royal Society of Prevention for Accidents (RoSPA). The Gold Award reflects Global Marine’s commitment to delivering strong occupational health and safety management systems across its business in line with guidance given by both the HSE’s ‘Successful Health and Safety Management’ and the BSI’s ‘Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems.’

Subsea cable specialists, Offshore Marine Management (OMM), has supplied guard vessels for some of Europe’s largest subsea cable projects and sees the business as a natural fit with its portfolio of cabling and personnel activities.

Alcatel-Lucent and Main One Cable Company Limited, owner of a new cable on the West Coast of Africa, have signed a maintenance contract for the Phase 1 of the Main One cable system, an open access submarine cable network aiming to contribute to enhance African and international connectivity.

BOWind has awarded the survey inspection and remedial works contract for the Barrow Offshore Wind Farm export cable to subsea cable specialists Offshore Marine Management (OMM). OMM has also been awarded the cable survey contract for Burbo Bank by developer DONG Energy.

WIND, formerly Jan Wind Shipping, has announced that it has recovered the first 800 kilometers of the decommissioned SAT-1 submarine cable.  After a trial trip in December, one of WIND’s ships, the M.V. Lida, returned to Cape Town earlier this month with the recovered submarine cable.

The consortium that owns and operates the SEA-ME-WE-3 submarine fiber optic cable system is working to repair a fault in the Indian Ocean.

Gateway Communications, the leading supplier of African telecommunications services, announced that it was the only carrier using the SEACOM submarine fiber optic cable to remain operational in many East and Southern African countries during the repair of the SEA-ME-WE-4 cable in the Mediterranean.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) has reported that repairs to the SEA-ME-WE-4 cable system have been completed and that Internet traffic across the region is being restored to normal levels.

Telekom Malaysia (TM), a member of the SEA-ME-WE-4 consortium, has reported that it is experiencing some disruptions due to the fault on the SEA-ME-WE-4 submarine fiber optic cable.

East African submarine cable operator SEACOM reported that it experienced an interruption in its service on 14 April 2010 which lasted around seven minutes as a result of a fault on the Mediterranean section of the SEA-ME-WE44 submarine cable system, which SEACOM currently utilizes to connect to London.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is calling for a backup system to protect the global submarine fiber optic cable network to reduce the risk of catastrophic outages.

The IEEE report described above comes at a time when a fault on SEA-ME-WE-4 is disruption traffic in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean regions.

Etisalat has released a statement on the status of repairs to international submarine fiber optic cable SEA-ME-WE-4, which is out of service after suffering a fault between Palermo, Italy, and Alexandria, Egypt.

The SEAMEWE-4 consortium has announced that their submarine cable system has suffered a fault near Italy on 14th April 2010. The fault requires to be repaired urgently. The Consortium has planned to carry out the repair operation of the faulty segment on priority and the cable repair ship has been mobilized for this purpose.

Nexans has further extended the subsea cable laying capabilities of the cable ship Nexans Skagerrak, already one of the world’s most advanced cable ships, following the successful completion of a major conversion and upgrading project. It will put to sea shortly from the Cammell Laird Shiprepairers and Shipbuilders Limited dockyard in Birkenhead, England where the 8 million euro, two-month, fast track contract was carried out.

Infoterra has launched AssetMonitor™, a new submarine asset protection service aimed at helping to protect valuable underwater assets – such as electricity and telecom cables and oil and gas pipelines – from accidental damage by anchors and fishing activity. The company is also pleased to announce that Guernsey and Jersey Electricity’s Channel Islands Electricity Grid (CIEG) has become the first organization to deploy AssetMonitor, and will use it to protect the two 90,000 Volt submarine cables that supply power and fiber optic communications from France to Jersey and on to Guernsey.

Tyco Telecommunications, a business unit of Tyco Electronics and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, has announced that it is now operating under a new corporate name: Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications (TE SubCom). TE SubCom will continue to deliver the same reliable, high-quality, undersea communications solutions, maintaining a leading position in the industry just as it has done for more than five decades.

A major earthquake in Taiwan on March 4 damaged several submarine cable systems and disrupted Internet services on the island.  Unlike previous disruptions caused by earthquakes in Taiwan, however, services were restored quickly.

A major earthquake in Taiwan on March 4 damaged several submarine cable systems and disrupted Internet services on the island.  Unlike previous disruptions caused by earthquakes in Taiwan, however, services were restored quickly.

Vodafone Ghana, in collaboration with members of the SAT-3 submarine cable consortium, has successfully repaired a shunt fault on its cable that led to the loss of Internet service countrywide for about two weeks.

Millicent Yawa Atsu, Manager, Technology, Vodafone Ghana, described the situation to journalists recently in Accra during a tour of the network operation center of the SAT 3/WASC/SAFE at Vodafone’s Accra High Street branch.

The cable ship Chamarel, based in South Africa, undertook the repair.

The shunt fault forced Vodafone Ghana to re-route its traffic on other branches of SAT-3 landing in Cote d’Ivoire South Africa and from there to Europe, thus causing the delays that users in Ghana have been experiencing. 

“Were it not for the cable that connected Cote d’Ivoire and South Africa, Ghana would have been completely been in an Internet black out,” Mrs. Atsu said.

Voice traffic was restored using satellite backup.

“Vodafone Ghana was able to provide its voice services courtesy of its Kuntunse Earth Station, which readily provided a competent backup,” Mrs. Atsu indicated.

West African submarine cable SAT-3 has suffered a failure off the coast of Nigeria that is impacting customers of Telkom South Africa.

In response to customer demand, the EGS Survey Group, worldwide leaders in the field of marine survey, are pleased to announce their expansion into the Americas region with the establishment of EGS Americas, Inc.

Ocean Specialists, Inc. (OSI) and Pierre Tremblay of Aletheia Subsea Consulting Pte Ltd are pleased to announce the creation of the OSI Asia Pacific regional headquarters to be located in Singapore.

Apollo SCS-Ltd has announced its entry and participation in the Alcatel Private Maintenance Agreement. This Agreement ensures that in the event of any subsea damage the Apollo Submarine Cable System will be repaired by one of the World's leading Cable Fleets. The Agreement guarantees the availability of ships dedicated to the repair of cables in the unfortunate event of a cable failure.

The Indonesian Directorate General of Sea Transportation, the Marine Department of Malaysia and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore are working together to protect submarine fiber optic cables in the Strait of Malacca and off Singapore following a series of incidents.  The three government agencies are reminding mariners of the rules for anchoring in the region and have reported their concerns to the International Maritime Organization.

Australia’s telecommunications regulator, Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) plans to review its regulations on the protection of submarine cables in Australian waters.

Ocean Specialists, Inc. (OSI) has announced the addition of Jerry Neely as Senior Project Manager.  In his new role, Jerry is the Project Manager and the primary technical consultant for the development and fabrication of a deep water Ocean Observing System featuring a fiber optic seabed backbone and several powered instrumentation nodes.

Optic Marine Offshore International Limited (OMO) has successfully completed a shore-end submarine cable laying and burial project, spanning approximately 7 kilometers in the Philippines.  The submarine fiber optic network that is designed to carry international and domestic voice and data traffic to most of major cities in Philippines was completed ahead of schedule.

Tyco Telecommunications, a business unit of Tyco Electronics and an industry pioneer and leader in undersea communications technology, has announced it successfully deployed a new, top-of-the-line shore-end plow in a recent cable landing operation. The plow, which enables continuity of burial from beach to deep water, provides enhanced efficiency and shallow water burial capability without the need for manual diver jet burial.

Ocean Specialists, Inc. (OSI) has announced the addition of Perry Wright as Director of Integrated Subsea Systems.  In his new role, Perry will expand OSI’s capability to support oil and gas and telecom customers in the development of undersea fiber optic networks worldwide. Perry will focus on further developing the challenging areas of in-field fiber connection system design and planning, including the development of subsea field networks.

E-Marine, the Persian Gulf region’s leader in submarine cable deployment, maintenance and repair, has announced it has been selected to maintain the 5,000-km submarine cable system between the UAE and Kenya. This cable route is providing Kenya and bordering countries access to international voice and data connectivity. This will also bring affordable high-speed Internet access to the East African Countries, which is critically important for the future development of national economies on the continent.

The Malaysian government reports that a number of cable repair and maintenance operations will be taking place this month in Malaysian waters.

We noted last week unofficial reports that the American Samoa Hawaii (ASH) cable remained operational throughout the devastating tsunami that hit the islands of Samoa and American Samoa.  This has now been confirmed by ASH-Cable, the company that operates the system.

The submarine cables that were damaged by Typhoon Marakot in August are expected to be fully repaired this month, according to an executive of China Telecom. Access to websites based in the United States and some Asian countries stopped or slowed in the middle of August for many Chinese Internet users, after the typhoon hit Taiwan on August 9, causing undersea landslides which knocked out numerous cables.

Tyco Telecommunications, a business unit of Tyco Electronics and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, today is pleased to announce the launch of its new corporate website at www.tycotelecom.com.  The new site provides an interactive and enlightening view of the capabilities, solutions and processes that have enabled the company to deliver the most reliable, highest-quality undersea fiber optic systems around the world. Comprehensive and visually appealing, www.tycotelecom.com serves as a resource for both seasoned industry veterans and newcomers seeking information for potential new projects.

Scottish and Southern Energy plc has released a tender for a full marine survey and design works for a submarine power cable connecting the Shetland Islands to mainland Scotland.

There have been numerous reports from blogs and customer forums that European carrier Colt Telecom has suffered a major disruption of services due to a submarine cable cut in the English Channel.

Marine solutions company Offshore Marine Management (OMM) is undertaking guard vessel provision, coordination and project management services under its awarded contract for the BorWin1 power cable by Transpower Offshore (formerly E.ON Netz Offshore GmbH) from Germany.

Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) said that since Taiwan's multiple undersea cable outages occurring from August 9 to 13 as a result of a typhoon, all international voice communications have resumed to normal levels after CHT's adopting urgent backup measures as well as coordinating with its overseas telecom partners to divert traffic.

A series of earthquakes in the ocean between Japan and Taiwan may be responsible for more cable outages.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is reporting that West African submarine cable system SAT-3 has been repaired.

While carriers struggle to restore full services on submarine cables in Southeast Asia, some large end users are hardly affected by the disruption. 

Open Access Marketing (OAM), a global business process outsourcing company, said that thanks to its preparation, its services, which are entirely dependent on Internet access, were not affected.

Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom reported last week that the China-US Cable Network (CUCN) suffered an outage on August 13 (see TSA Submarine Cable NewsFeed for August 14). 

Chunghwa is now reporting that segments of many regional submarine cable systems suffered outages during the period of August 9-12.  The cable systems identified by Chunghwa include: SEA-ME-WE-3, APCN, APCN-2, EAC/C2C, and FNAL/RNAL.

In a report from Pacnet’s help desk, the company has detailed the damage done to its EAC submarine cable system.  Typhoon Morakot, which hit Southeast Asia recently, is believed to be the cause of the damage.

The Pacnet report states the following:

A series of submarine cable outages have occurred across Southeast Asia.  As we reported yesterday, APCN-2 has suffered two faults, but this was only one of several problems. 

 

Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) is now reporting that the China-US Cable Network (CUCN) experienced an outage at 1:35 AM (local time) on August 13. A company statement said that this followed the multiple cable breakdowns on August 12 offshore the southeastern part of Taiwan.

Typhoon Morakot, which hit Southeast Asia over the weekend, is apparently responsible for a fault on APCN-2 that is reportedly impacting the quality of Internet services in the region. 

According to Telekom Malaysia (TM), APCN-2 has suffered a fault on segment 7, between Shantou, China, and Tanshui, Taiwan.  TM said it has traced the outage to the typhoon.

Offshore Marine Management (OMM), a marine solutions company, has completed the Pre-Lay Grapnel Run contract for the BorWin1 cable for Global Marine Systems Ltd.

The number of offshore wind turbines connected by submarine power cables to the mainland grid could increase by one-third, according to figures released by European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).

Five Oceans Services (FOS) has announced that it has been awarded a second contract by RasGas Company Limited in Qatar for the repair of a damaged section of subsea cable between two platforms offshore Qatar.  The contract is a follow up to a 2009 repair successfully completed by FOS for RasGas.  Operations will commence imminently and are part of the RasGas Offshore Expansion Project Phase 1.

National Grid in Warwick, United Kingdom, is undertaking market research into suppliers of HVDC (high voltage direct current) submarine cable and HVAC (high voltage alternating current) submarine cable and HVDC land cable.

RWE Innogy and ABB have signed a contract for delivery of submarine cable for the offshore wind farm Nordsee Ost. In total, ABB will supply around 63 kilometers of cable. They will be used to network the 48 wind turbines of the wind farm with one another and connect them to an offshore transformer station. The undersea cable will be produced by an ABB subsidiary in Sweden. The contract is valued at around EUR 10 million.

It has been a while since we have reported on cable installations in lakes.  There was a flurry of activity in this market a few years ago, with a number of cables laid across large lakes in the United States and Europe.

Global Marine Systems (GMS) has successfully completed the direct shore end landing and lay of two new power cables at European Marine Energy Centre’s (EMEC) tidal test site at Eday, Orkney Islands and one new power cable at EMEC’s wave test site at Billia Croo, Orkney Islands.

Nexans has been awarded a Euros 64 million turnkey contract by Greece’s PPC (Public Power Corporation) – the country’s largest electrical power utility – to design, manufacture and install the new high-voltage AC (Alternate Current) power link between Evia and the region of Attika on the mainland. The award, which was announced by PPC in May (see Submarine Cable World NewsFeed for May 24, 2010), will facilitate the development of wind power projects totaling around 400 MW on Evia, the second largest of the Greek islands, by enabling the power they produce to be exported directly into PPC’s national power transmission grid.

The latest stage of South West RDA’s (Regional Development Agency) pioneering Wave Hub project is underway as the hub and its 25km cable are loaded onto a cable laying ship ready for deployment offshore in the next few weeks.

Nexans has been awarded a 104 million Euro contract by Statnett, Norway’s national main grid owner and operator, to design, manufacture and install the new Oslofjord II submarine high-voltage power link thus replacing the existing cables installed over 30 years ago which have reached the end of their service-life. The new Nexans cables, which transmission capacity will reach 3,000 MVA, will ensure a high level of continuity and reliability for a power link that plays a vital role both in Norway’s transmission grid and in facilitating the transmission of power between Norway and Sweden.

Italian electricity grid operator Terna has authorized construction of the last segment of the “Sorgente-Rizziconi” line between the Regions of Sicily and Calabria.

ABB has won an order worth around $700 million, from the German transmission grid operator, transpower, to supply an 800-megawatt (MW) power link that will connect more offshore wind farms in the DolWin1cluster, located in the North Sea to the mainland German grid.

Prysmian, a leading worldwide player in the energy and telecommunications cables industry, has been awarded a project worth in excess of € 150 million by the German transmission system operator Transpower, a subsidiary of the Dutch grid operator TenneT, for the grid connection project HelWin1 linking two offshore wind farms in the North Sea to mainland Germany.

Transpower Offshore GmbH has released a tender for the supply and deployment of a submarine power cable.  The tender closes on August 12.

The Commission of the European Union (EU) has approved a subsidy of 100 million euros for the EstLink 2 transmission link. EstLink 2, a joint project by Fingrid and Elering, the electricity transmission system operators in Finland and Estonia, calls for the construction of a new submarine cable between the two countries. The capacity of the new link costing a total of approximately 320 million euros is 650 megawatts, and it is due to be commissioned in early 2014.

TenneT/transpower. A Dutch/German power company, is starting the next phase of its interconnection plans by building two new interconnections to Norway. This was announced recently by Mel Kroon, CEO of TenneT, at the visit of her majesty queen Beatrix of the Netherlands to Norway. The new high voltage subsea cables will enlarge the import of sustainable energy from Norway and strengthen the sustainable ambitions of the European Commission.

Prysmian has signed an industrial partnership agreement with 11 other leading European groups in the power generation and transmission technologies and industries. The initiative, supported by the French Minister for Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Town and Country Planning, Jean-Luis Borloo and of the French Republic President’s Special Advisor, Henri Guaino, aims at studying the feasibility and the realization of the trans-Mediterranean super-grid, called Transgreen, that would carry renewable energy from Northern Africa to Europe.

Nexans has been awarded a major contract by Lincs Wind Farm Limited to supply the medium voltage submarine array cables and associated accessories for the 270 MW Lincs offshore wind farm to be constructed off the east coast of England. The order further extends Nexans’ involvement in the Lincs wind farm project, as it follows the contract awarded by Centrica in November 2009 to supply the HV submarine power export cables.

The introductory preparations for pulling ashore the high-voltage connecting the Walney 1 offshore wind farm with the onshore high-voltage grid has been in progress during the past couple of weeks off South Lakeland Caravan Park, in the United Kingdom, according to Dong Energy, the company developing the wind farm.

A consortium of Siemens Energy and Prysmian Powerlink has received an order for submarine cables worth more than EUR500 million from the German transmission grid company Transpower. The BorWin2 offshore consortium will connect two North Sea offshore wind farms to the grid on behalf of Transpower, a subsidiary of the Dutch grid operator TenneT.

The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) has selected Draka Offshore as its submarine power cable provider. The contract requires Draka to deliver approximately 11,000mt of 20kV subsea power cable for use in EMEC's tidal and wave energy test sites in Orkney.

The State of Hawaii has announced AECOM will prepare the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed submarine interisland cable connecting the islands of Lanai, Molokai, Oahu and Maui. 

Nexans has successfully completed a new 75 km subsea power link between Pemba Island, the second largest island in the Zanzibar archipelago, and the national power grid on mainland Tanzania.

In late May, a submarine power cable was installed in Xiaman, a city in southeastern China, setting two records for such cables in China.

Fingrid, the electricity transmission system operator in Finland, has made a capital investment decision concerning the second direct current transmission link, EstLink 2, between Estonia and Finland. The capacity of the planned transmission link is 650 megawatts and the costs of the project total approx. 320 million euros. The submarine cable will be built in co-operation with the Estonian transmission system operator Elering. The execution of the project still requires that the recently opened electricity market in Estonia starts off favorably and that the project receives an investment subsidy of 100 million euros from the European Union.

Greek electric power utility Public Power Corporation S.A. has announced that on Friday, May 14, 2010, it signed a contract with Nexans Norway AS for the construction of a submarine power cable connecting Polypotamos and Nea Makri, Greece.

Draka Offshore has announced that it has been awarded the array-cabling contract for the Walney 2 project from Dong Energy in Denmark. The announcement follows the recent completion of the company's expansion to its subsea production facility.

Enemalta, the electric power utility for Malta, is preparing a tender for the installation of a submarine power cable between Malta and Italy.

The Malaysian government has shelved plans for what would have been the largest submarine power cable system in history, a submarine power connection for the giant Bakun Dam hydroelectric project.

Taiwan Power (Taipower) plans to build a submarine power cable link connecting Taiwan with the Penghu Islands, an archipelago off the western coast of Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait consisting of 90 small islands and islets covering an area of 141 square kilometers. 

The laying of the Aghada-Raffeen 220kV submarine cable crossing between Aghada and Cuskinny on Great Island, Cork, Ireland, was successfully completed between February 6th and 13th.

The government of Jakarta, Indonesia, plans to conduct bidding for a 40-kilometer submarine power cable installation to the Thousand Islands, a group of islands that is a political subdivision of Jakarta.  The bidding is planned for later this month.

Statnett has submitted a license application to the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) for permission to build a new DC interconnector, called NORD.LINK, between Norway and Germany.

As we have noted previously in the NewsFeed and Radar Screen Report, the market for submarine power cables is booming.  The “green” energy movement is bringing with it the need to transmit electricity from clean energy generating sources to the metropolitan areas that need it.  Submarine power cables are already widely used with offshore wind farms and for international power grid interconnection, but now innovative developers are looking at all kinds of waterways as potential routes for new cables.

Danish electricity utility Energinet has released a tender for submarine power cable for a project in Laesoe, Denmark.

Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) reports that it has received a number of bids from international suppliers to build a submarine power cable from the Tanzanian mainland to Unguja Island.  MCC closed the bidding process last week for the 132 Kv submarine cable.  The cable will run from Ras Kiromoni, near Dar es Salaam, to Ras Fumba in Ugunja.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to provide EUR 300 million for the construction of the BritNed Interconnector, a new electricity transmission cable between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The BritNed cable is a 50:50 joint venture, between National Grid and TenneT, who operate the grids. It will have a capacity of 1,000 MW and make a significant contribution to the security and diversity of electricity supplies in both the UK and the Netherlands. The interconnector will also boost competition by improving connections with European markets.

Sea Breeze Power Corp. has reported on recent progress with development of the Juan de Fuca submarine power cable.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has announced plans to finance the construction of a 700-kilometer submarine electric transmission cable between Java and Sumatra.

A feasibility study for a submarine power cable to interconnect Romania and Turkey will be completed in May 2010, according to the head of the Department for corporate strategy for Romanian power company Transelectrica, Razvan Purdila, told a press conference recently.

Power Company Number 2, a unit of Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), officially started the surveying work for a 110 KV submarine power cable network project from Ha Tien Town to Phu Quoc Island on January 8.

Norwegian power utility Lofotkraft AS has released a tender for the supply of submarine power cable.  The tender calls for 9.5 kilometers of 24Kv submarine cable.  The deadline for bidders is March 9, 2010.

Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has announced a project that could considerably reduce the cost of cabling from offshore wave and tidal farms to the shore.

Norwegian power utility Statnett has released a tender for a submarine power cable linking Norway and Denmark.

Power utilities in the United Kingdom and Belgium have released a tender for a marine survey for a submarine power cable between the United Kingdom and Belgium.

Prysmian Cables & Systems has been awarded by Terna Spa Rete Elettrica Nazionale a major contract to develop the new extra high voltage submarine power link between Sicily and the Italian mainland, an interconnection of strategic importance for the development of the entire national power grid.

Four tenders have been launched recently related to submarine power cable projects in Europe.

A report commissioned by the state of Hawaii has concluded that a submarine power cable to distribute energy between the Hawaiian Islands is feasible and has proposed four potential routes.

Two tenders have been released for works related to the Estlink-2 and Nordbalt submarine power cables in the Baltic Sea.

The submarine power cable market in Europe is growing thanks to efforts by the European Commission to improve the flow of electricity throughout the continent by cross-border connections.  A decision by the Commission in September 2006 laid down a series of guidelines for trans-European energy networks (TEN-E Guidelines).  Under these guidelines, a number of projects that are of cross-border nature or that have significant impact on cross-border transmission capacity were declared to be of European interest.

Fingrid Oyj and Svenska Kraftnät, the transmission system operators in Finland and Sweden, respectively, will construct a new submarine cable connection called Fenno-Skan-2, an extension to the existing Fenno-Skan, between the two countries. The high-voltage direct current (HVDC) link with a transmission capacity of 800 megawatts (MW) will be completes in 2011. Capital expenditure in this project will total approximately 300 million euros.

LS Cable held the ceremony for the completion of the first-in-Korea submarine cable factory in Donghae City, Gangwon Province, on the 19th of November.

The cable ship Giulio Verne has begun laying the 53-mile long Trans Bay Cable (TBC) under San Francisco Bay. TBC is an energy transmission infrastructure project designed to provide additional energy to the City of San Francisco. It will transfer already existing energy from an electric transmission system substation in Pittsburg, California, to San Francisco. This energy transmission project will transport approximately 400 megawatts of hydropower, geothermal, and wind power.

The Finnish and Estonian transmission system operators, Fingrid Oyj and Elering OÜ, have decided to carry out the studies, obtain permits and define specifications for EstLink 2 HVDC electricity transmission interconnection between Finland and Estonia.

The New York State Public Service Commission has approved the New York portion of a 6.6 mile, 345 kV AC, submarine electric transmission line that will extend under the Hudson River to connect a planned, 512-MW power plant in Bayonne, New Jersey to an existing substation owned by Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. in Brooklyn, New York. The project is scheduled to commence operations at the end of 2011.

NGIL, a National Grid subsidiary, and Statnett have signed a contract to explore the prospects of a power connection between Norway and Great Britain, possibly together with an offshore grid in the North Sea.

A tender for the supply of the longest submarine power cable yet proposed will be released within the next three months.  The planned cable will transmit electricity from Bakun hydroelectric dam in Sarawak to Peninsular Malaysia.

The electricity grid operators of Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia have released a supply tender for the Nordbalt submarine power cable.  The 350-kilometer cable will run from Sweden to Lithuania and completion is planned for 2016.

Sweden’s Svenska Kraftnat (SvK), Lithuania’s Lietuvos Energija and Latvia’s Latvenergo signed a memorandum of understanding in July of this year to proceed with the cable project.  They also decided that SvK will both have the lead as well as the ultimate responsibility in the performance of this procurement procedure while Lietuvos Energija and Latvenergo will participate as observers.

According to SvK, the tender covers the following services:
· Procurement of the submarine cable, practical items,
· Type testing,
· Cable manufacturing
· On shore and offshore trenches,
· Laying and jointing of the cable,
· Installation of the cable terminations,
· Final documentation,
· Writing reports, doing surveys etc.
· Other possible work related to the cable project

More information about the tender can be obtained from Svenska Kraftnat, BOX 1200, Attn: Marcus Jacobson, S-172 24 Sundbyberg. Tel.  +46 35182242. E-mail: marcus.jacobson@svk.se. Fax  +46 35182241.

Nexans has been awarded a 35 million Euro turnkey contract by EDF to construct a new submarine power cable for the French island of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean. The cable link will take a subsea route along the coast to connect the power production area located at Le Port in the West of the island to the capital city of Saint-Denis which requires much of the energy. By choosing this subsea cable route, the construction of 20 km of aerial power lines across a natural environment made of rugged, steep and mountainous terrain was avoided.

Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and PT PLN (Persero) have signed an agreement for a submarine power cable to interconnect the electricity grids in Malaysia and Indonesia.

The electrical transmission grid operator in Montenegro is in the final stages of preparation for the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Italian system operator TERNA to build a submarine power cable between the two countries.

According to the European Union website, at least three tenders have been released for submarine power cables in two Western European countries, as the continent continues to develop its electricity infrastructure and offshore wind farms.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is to lend up to EUR 500 million to help Ireland secure and green its electricity supplies and support Europe’s economic recovery. Two loan contracts to that effect were signed recently in Dublin by EIB Vice President Plutarchos Sakellaris and the chief executives of EirGrid Plc and Electricity Supply Board (ESB) in the presence of Irish Energy Minister Eamon Ryan.

Two tenders related to submarine power cables have been released, according to the European Union tenders website.

The formal business case for a subsea electricity cable to link Western Isles renewable energy farms to the National Grid have been submitted to power regulator of the United Kingdom, Ofgem.

India and Sri Lanka will soon sign a memorandum of understanding to study the feasibility of laying a submarine cable, which will be the first of its kind in Asia when completed, to connect their power networks.

Pacnet has announced the launch of its Hong Kong Data Landing Station (DLS), the first carrier neutral data center facility of its kind in the Asia Pacific region with direct high-speed connectivity into Pacnet’s pan-Asian subsea cable network.

GlobeNet, an international wholesale provider of submarine capacity, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Oi, has unveiled its plans for a 200 Gbps upgrade, from 360 Gbps to 560 Gbps of total lit network capacity, in its lowest latency, fiber optic cable network connecting the Americas. In response to the ever-increasing bandwidth demands from its customers, GlobeNet has successfully completed a network trial to ensure its optical transmission technology can support this high capacity upgrade. As a result, GlobeNet awarded Alcatel-Lucent and Xtera Communications, Inc. 100 Gbps contracts respectfully. The new network capacity deployment is scheduled to be complete by first quarter 2011 with further plans by GlobeNet to upgrade to a 1.44 Tbps network thereafter.

The national data transmission backbone and e-governance infrastructure cable will be connected to SEACOM, the East African Marine System (TEAMS) and the East African submarine cable system (EAASy) cables, the ICT minister has said.

Hibernia Atlantic has announced the opening of its office facility located at 55 Old Broad Street in London, United Kingdom. The new office is a result of Hibernia's strong growth in Europe and the increased customer demand for its robust network services platform globally.

African mobile operator Zain Tanzania has slashed its Internet tariffs by more than 50 percent following the company’s connection to East African submarine fiber optic cable SEACOM.

As part of its efforts to further enhance Internet services, Starcomms has acquired capacity on the Main One submarine fiber optic cable linking Nigeria and the whole of West Africa to Europe. The new development will pave the way for additional transformation in Internet access and reliable voice service from Starcomms.

Ownership of small shares of three Caribbean submarine fiber optic cables will be transferred under a bankruptcy reorganization plan of one of the members of the consortia that own the cables.

A carrier in the South Pacific has released a Request for Proposal (RFP) for telecom and Internet Protocol (IP) services in Australia and key global markets.

Pacific Crossing, an NTT Communications Corporation company and operator of the transpacific submarine cable system PC-1, has further upgraded the capacity and enhanced its Ethernet service offering on its infrastructure in order to match continual growth in demand for its services. The newly added capacity came into service at the end of July. A third upgrade of the PC-1 system is scheduled for later in 2010.

AT&T has announced the planned expansion of its network capacity for the Asia Pacific region through the upgrade of the APCN2, of which AT&T is part of the ownership group. The fourfold rise in capacity in the state-of-the-art dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) cable will increase the original design capacity from the existing 10Gb/s DWDM to 40Gb/s expansion. This represents one of the world’s large-scale upgrade of a major undersea cable network.

Cable & Wireless (C&W) Worldwide has announced that it has won a new contract with Trans World Associates (Pvt.) Ltd. (TWA) to provide data network solutions to connect its customers across Europe and the United States of America. The company will provide bandwidth connectivity services to TWA's growing customer base in Pakistan.

Equinix, Inc., a provider of global data center services, and Level 3 Communications, Inc., a leading international provider of fiber-based communications services, today announced the opening of a new access node in Equinix’s International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) London 4/London5 (LD4/5) data center campus located on the outskirts of London. The access node will link the Equinix LD4/5 IBX campus directly with three of Level 3’s transatlantic routes to New York, improving diversity and lowering the latency on the route between the UK and North America.

As high-capacity submarine fiber optic cables come into service on both the east and west coasts of Africa, carriers are upgrading their networks to offer new services and take advantage of the vast amount of capacity the new cables offer.

Pacnet, Asia’s leading independent telecommunications service provider, has completed the deployment of a highly scalable Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) based on the Cisco® Carrier Routing System (CRS) platform.

Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transatlantic high bandwidth connectivity provider, has announced that ACTIV Financial, a leading global provider of fully managed low-latency market data solutions, has selected Hibernia Atlantic's Global Financial Network (GFN) for Ethernet between Frankfurt and Chicago. ACTIV chose Hibernia's GFN, a next generation, high speed connectivity platform because of its rapid delivery coupled with secure route diversity, commercial flexibility and unmatched provisioning time to install.

Hibernia Atlantic has announced that Deutsche Börse Systems, the IT subsidiary of Deutsche Börse AG, has selected Hibernia’s secure Global Financial Network (GFN) for high performance, protected connectivity between Frankfurt and Chicago. Deutsche Börse Systems chose Hibernia's GFN because of its full route diversity throughout the entire transatlantic, long-haul network, as well as down to the local metro loop level. The new high capacity route will serve Deutsche Börse Group’s large financial client base. The route also avoids highly congested network areas, such as around the New York and London waterways, thereby offering security through physical diversity.

Level 3 Communications, Inc. has announced it has invested in making Level 3’s connection to the city of Manchester resilient, meaning the city’s Internet connectivity is now independent of the Level 3 London hub. Level 3 serves approximately 45 markets in Europe and can seamlessly deliver transport as well as Internet Protocol (IP) services from Manchester through to Western Europe and markets across North America.

Over the past few years, Iceland has become well connected by international submarine fiber optic cables – the FARICE cable to Scotland, the DANICE cable to Denmark and Greenland Connect to Greenland.  The multiple submarine cable connections allow Iceland to position itself as a “green” data center location, using its abundant renewable energy.

Gateway Communications, the leading supplier of telecommunications services across Africa, claimed the prestigious award for “Wholesale Service Innovation” in partnership with SEACOM in an awards ceremony held on the 8 June in London.

Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd. (BSCCL), which has exclusive rights to capacity on the only international submarine fiber optic cable landing in the country, intends to lease out bandwidth on the SEA-ME-WE-4 cable system.

In preparation for the SEACOM landing in Egypt that will mark the final configuration of the East African submarine cable system, the branching unit that is located in the international waters of the Arabian Sea, has been reconfigured.

Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transatlantic high bandwidth connectivity provider, has announced that North West Electronics (NWE), an innovative Internet Service Provider serving the North of Ireland, will expand its wireless network with Hibernia Atlantic's fiber connectivity for Project Kelvin. As an early adopter in utilizing this high capacity cable, NWE Electronics can now offer wide-scale wireless Internet connectivity across Ireland to meet the growing demands of business customers and end-users.

Level 3 Communications, Inc. has announced that the company has established a multi-service relationship with GlobeNet, an international provider of submarine cable transmission capacity, to enable Level 3 and GlobeNet to offer transport and high-speed Internet services to satisfy the growth in communications demand in South America.

Global Crossing has announced it is adding capacity on both its North American terrestrial network and its Atlantic Crossing 1® (AC-1®) subsea network.

US wholesale carrier Allied Fiber has finalized agreements with financial partners and right-of-way owners to build a new nationwide, network-neutral, high-count dark fiber cable system integrated with colocation facilities and wireless tower sites. Construction of the first 1,300 route-mile phase linking New York, Chicago and Ashburn, Virginia, is already underway and will cost approximately US$140 million. The completed dark fiber network will span 11,548 route miles ringing the entire U.S., to be built in six phases, linking subsea cable landing points, major data centers, colocation interconnection facilities, rural networks and wireless towers. Allied has secured several agreements with railroad companies including Norfolk Southern Railway and other major right-of-way owners.

Xtera Communications, Inc. has announced a new contract with Global Crossing, a leading global IP solutions provider, to upgrade a legacy system fiber pair on Network Segment C (linking Brookhaven, New York and Whitesands, United Kingdom) of Global Crossing’s Atlantic Crossing (AC-1) network to meet growing customer demand for broadband services.

Baltcom IP has joined Internet exchange DECIX in Frankfurt that is among biggest and fastest growing points in Europe.  Thanks to direct peering possibilities, Baltcom said that its customers would enjoy improved services on many European routes.

In an effort to establish an alternative route for its international Internet traffic, Rwandatel is negotiating to buy capacity from The East African Marine System (TEAMS).

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has received an application for consent to the transfer of control of the interest in the American Samoa-Hawaii Cable, held by American Samoa Hawaii Cable, LLC (ASHC), AST Telecom d/b/a Blue Sky Communications (Blue Sky) and Pac-Rim Redeployment, LLC (PRR) from Stanford International Bank, Ltd. (SIBL) to Pete R. Pizarro.

UUNET Kenya customers can now enjoy 100% uptime after the company recently completed the installation of the 2nd International Backbone and the setting up of a Point of Presence (POP) in the United States. Previously, customers were re-routed to the U.S. through the firm’s London POP. This new development gives UUNET Kenya faster access the U.S.; both in terms of download speeds and access times.

A $79 million settlement has been reached in a long-running class action suit that accuses Tyco International Ltd. of misleading investors in its undersea cable subsidiary, TyCom Ltd.

Rostelecom and other participants of an international telecommunications consortium have signed a contract with Alcatel-Lucent to modernize and expand the Georgia-Russia submarine fiber-optic cable system.

Internode has extended the coverage of its Internode Business Connect (IBC) private Internet Protocol networks across the Tasman Sea for clients with offices in New Zealand.  IBC Private IP networks now reach New Zealand.

Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transatlantic high bandwidth connectivity provider, has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, MediaXstream, will now be branded as Hibernia Media. Hibernia Media is a leading provider of high quality transport and managed network services for the media production and broadcast industries. Hibernia Media is currently operational in 30 major markets in the U.S. and Europe, serving the increasingly growing demand for High Definition video networking and production services by TV and film production, sports, news, mobile content and IPTV. Hibernia Atlantic acquired the company in December 2009, further enhancing the combined entity’s network reach, performance and product offering, adding significant marketplace opportunities, technological innovation and customer value to media customers, financial houses and wholesale carrier providers.

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) has announced completion of another phase of its Digital Fiber Optic Network (DFON) expansion program. PLDT recently activated an additional 320 Gbps across six submarine and terrestrial network loops nationwide to serve the rising demand for bandwidth as more customers increase their usage of broadband Internet and multi-media services. This increased the operating capacity of PLDT's DFON to more than 1,000 Gbps at a total cost of P600 million.

SEACOM has announced that it has joined forces with Tata Communications to provide the critical international capacity to the broadcasters of the 2010 FIFA World Cup which kicks-off in South Africa on 11 June 2010.

Level 3 Communications, Inc. has announced that the company will deliver high-speed network services for PT. Telkom Indonesia International (TII), a wholly owned subsidiary of PT. Telkom Indonesia. Under the terms of the agreement, TII will use Level 3's landing station connectivity at the Asia America Gateway (AAG) submarine cable system. Level 3's services provide a diverse and scalable extension of TII's network to data and Internet traffic in the United States.

TPG Telecom Limited and PIPE Networks Limited have announced that the Supreme Court of Queensland has issued orders approving the Scheme of Arrangement between PIPE Networks and its shareholders involving TPG Telecom acquiring all of the shares in PIPE Networks that it does not already own for $6.30 cash per share. The Court orders follow the overwhelming support of PIPE Networks shareholders who voted in favor of the scheme at the Scheme Meeting held on 12 March 2010.

Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transatlantic high bandwidth connectivity provider, has announced that it has been selected by Tinet, formerly the carrier arm of Tiscali Group and the only global carrier exclusively committed to the IP and Ethernet wholesale market, to deliver multiple 10 Gbps wavelengths of capacity to and from Toronto, New York, Dublin, London, Frankfurt and other major metro areas on Hibernia’s private network.

Australian Internet service provider Internode has signed a contract for a capacity expansion with long-standing partner, the Southern Cross Cable Network (SCCN).

Global Crossing has announced that it is significantly expanding capacity on its Mid-Atlantic Crossing (MAC®), South American Crossing (SAC®) and Pan American Crossing (PAC®) undersea fiber-optic cable systems to meet rapidly growing demand for Internet Protocol (IP) and Ethernet transport among its enterprise, carrier and service provider customers.  These overbuilds will enhance connectivity between Latin America, North America and Europe and will be rolled out over the next six months, with some segments ready for service as early as May 2010.

Alcatel-Lucent and GlobeNet, a wholly owned subsidiary of Oi, completed the upgrade of GlobeNet’s 22,000-kilometer submarine cable system linking the United States with Latin America. This project, the second upgrade in approximately 18 months, enables GlobeNet to deliver more than 110 Gbps of capacity, the equivalent of 13.75 million voice calls at one time.

Philippines carrier Globe Telecom has applied to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), the country’s telecom regulator, to renew its permit to operate is international submarine cable landing station in Ballesteros, Cagayan province.

In a strategic move to meet growing market demands for data center co-location, managed hosting and value-added services in Asia Pacific, Pacnet has announced plans to convert its Cable Landing facilities across key markets in the region into Data Landing Stations (DLS).

TPG Telecom Limited and PIPE Networks Limited have announced that the two companies have obtained the necessary approvals from United States regulatory authorities to the acquisition of PIPE Networks by TPG.  A major condition in the Merger Implementation Agreement between PIPE Networks and TPG has therefore been satisfied.

Reliance Globalcom, a leading global provider of connectivity, hosting & managed services for multinational enterprises and carriers, is now able to offer 10G LAN PHY, a dedicated Ethernet point-to-point service, with a market leading data rate capacity of 10.31 Gbps as a standard service offering on its FA-1 Network. This delivers increased transport efficiencies and capacity over the existing wavelengths deployed on the Reliance Globalcom service, improving Gigabit Ethernet customer application speeds with ten times the bandwidth availability.

Nigeria’s Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has announced that African mobile phone giant MTN has won the bidding for Nigeria Telecommunication’s (Nitel’s) share of the South Atlantic Telecommunications-3 (SAT-3) submarine cable system.

Southern Cross Cable Networks has extended until 2020 its sponsorship of the Southern Cross Trans-Pacific Optical Research Test bed (SXTransPORT), with its submarine cable network providing 10 Gbps links to the United States for the Australian research community.

A damaged circuit on the Asia American Gateway (AAG) near Lantau, China, has disrupted Telekom Malaysia Bhd’s ™ Internet service.

Rwanda will soon have access to the SEACOM East African submarine cable system, according to carrier New Artel.

Submarine cable owners are competing for Ethiopia’s international traffic as the landlocked country’s telecom market continues to grow.

Tricom USA, an international carrier and member of several Caribbean submarine cable consortia that filed for bankruptcy protection two years ago, plans to create a new holding company for many of its assets, including its submarine cable holdings.

XO Communications has announced that it will participate with Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transatlantic high bandwidth connectivity provider, to offer high-capacity circuits throughout the United States and Europe.

Level 3 Communications, Inc. has announced an agreement with the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT). Under the terms of the agreement, PLDT will use Level 3's landing station connectivity at the Asia America Gateway (AAG) submarine cable system – a key communications link between the two continents. Level 3's services provide a diverse and scalable extension of the PLDT pan-Asian network to carry voice, data and video traffic in the United States.

Xtera Communications, Inc. has been awarded a contract in 2009 by the Americas I North and Columbus 2b consortia to upgrade the Americas I North Submarine Cable System between Vero Beach, Florida, and St. Thomas, USVI; and the Columbus 2b Submarine Cable system between West Palm Beach, Florida, and St. Thomas, USVI.

The Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd (BSCCL) plans to go public.  BSCCL was created by separating the submarine cable holdings, consisting of Bangladesh’s interest in SEA-ME-WE-4, from Bangladesh Telecommunications Company and placing them in a new company that would sell the capacity to any Bangladeshi carrier on a more equal basis.

In a separate announcement, Hibernia Atlantic recently acquired MediaXstream Inc., a leading provider of high quality transport and managed network services for the media production and broadcast industries.

Hibernia Atlantic, owner of the Hibernia Atlantic transatlantic submarine fiber optic cable, has announced that Constellation Growth Capital, a growth equity investor in the convergence of media, communications and technology, invested $13.4 million in the company. Columbia Ventures Corporation (CVC) owns the remaining shares of the company.

Bharti Airtel has announced the readiness of its Middle East Connect network, to serve global carriers in the region. The only outside operator with capacities on multiple cable routes in the region, Bharti Airtel offers the unique advantage of at least 3 multiple paths on every cable route.

Apollo, a transatlantic submarine cable system, and Equinix, Inc., a provider of global data center services, have announced that Apollo has opened a new Point of Presence (PoP) in Equinix's LD4 London Slough International Business Exchange(TM) (IBX(R)) data center. This new PoP in LD4 provides Apollo's customers with resilient, intercontinental access between the UK and major cities in the USA. By locating outside central London, Apollo is offering its customers an alternative, low latency route, bypassing major congestion points within central London.

The next upgrade for the Southern Cross submarine cable system is on schedule.  The company reports that equipment installation has been completed on the southern route and confidence testing scheduled to run over the Christmas period.

JDSU has announced that Southern Cross Cables Limited, a global bandwidth wholesaler that maintains a worldwide network and manages its capacity, has chosen the JDSU HD3-P4 fiber optic line of handheld inspection instruments along with FBP Probe Microscopes to improve network performance and reduce inspection time.  The units will be used for critical inspection of fiber in the company’s network that connects Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii to the Internet backbone in the United States.

Pacific Crossing Limited, the operator of the most reliable transpacific undersea cable network, PC-1, has announced that the acquisition of 100% of its shares by NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com), previously announced on May 25th, was successfully completed on Friday, October 23rd.

Bharti Airtel has announced the commencement of operations of its Far-East Connect Network, enabling it to serve the requirements of wholesale customers in the high growth markets across Asia and the Pacific. The Far-East Connect Network is uniquely designed to meet both the expansion and the diversity needs of customers in the Asia and the Pacific region, the company said in a statement.

The Columbus III consortium has awarded Xtera Communications, Inc., a contract to upgrade the transatlantic segment of the Columbus III Submarine Cable system between Hollywood, Florida, and Lisbon Portugal. The work and acceptance testing was completed on September 30, 2009, and the system is now ready to be placed in service, with Xtera’s advanced 20 Gbps Differential Phase Shift Key (DPSK) Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE), offering a significant increase in capacity as well as headroom for future growth.

Pacnet has announced plans to accelerate upgrades on its wholly owned subsea cable network EAC-C2C, adding an additional 3,600 Gbps of capacity across Asia to meet the region’s growing demand for bandwidth.

Pacnet has unveiled Pacnet Lightning, a class-leading network connectivity solution suite tailored for the financial services industry that guarantees the secure, reliable and low latency connections needed to meet their information access and trading needs.

Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd. (BSCCL) has added a second fiber optic backhaul connection between its submarine cable station in Cox’s Bazar and the major cities of Chittagong and Dhaka.  The link is a vital one for the country as the Cox’s Bazar cable station is where SEA-ME-WE-4, the only submarine cable serving Bangladesh, lands.

In an article posted recently on a blog in Bangladesh, Engr. Md. Monwar Hossain, Managing Director of Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd. (BSCCL), described the country’s submarine cable infrastructure and how it contributes to Bangladeshi society.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved the transfer control of the cable-landing license for the Pacific Crossing cable system (PC-1), currently held by PC Landing Corp., from its 100% parent, Pacific Crossing Limited (PCL), to NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com).

Hibernia Atlantic, the only diverse transatlantic submarine transport cable provider, has announced that it has selected Sunesys, a provider of high-speed dark fiber optic networks, to further expand its Global Financial Network (GFN) into 1400 Federal in Carteret New Jersey. Sunesys is one of Hibernia’s five New York metro dark fiber partners that help the transatlantic cable company to deliver low latency, redundant capacity to financial firms. Additionally, this construction expansion over dark fiber into 1400 Federal further accelerates Hibernia Atlantic’s connectivity to local and global banks and exchanges within the area. The announcement comes on the heels of the GFN’s extension into two new data centers in Secaucus, New Jersey.

Tyco Telecommunications, a business unit of Tyco Electronics and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, has announced the successful demonstration of 40 Gbps transmission capabilities using its next generation technology.

Global Crossing Limited has announced that it has completed its previously announced offering of $750 million in aggregate principal amount of its 12% senior secured notes due 2015 in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers in accordance with Rule 144A and Regulation S under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

Pacnet has unveiled its plans to support the burgeoning cross-straits financial services industry by leveraging its license to offer value-added telecommunications services across major cities in China and connecting businesses across both shores.

When 10 submarine cable systems in the Asia-Pacific region were damaged in more than 20 locations as the result of Typhoon Morakot and earthquakes off the coast of Taiwan, the Verizon Business global mesh network operated exactly as designed.

Infinera is launching a new submarine solution to bring the benefits of photonic integration to the world of undersea networks. The new Infinera submarine solution is designed to bring enhanced capacity, new services, and Infinera’s rapid speed of deployment to the world of subsea networks. The Infinera submarine solution, which is designed to be deployed at land-based terminals of submarine networks, is already shipping to Infinera customers and is carrying live traffic today for Global Crossing.

Submarine cable network operator Global Crossing Limited has announced the pricing of a private placement of $750 million in aggregate principal amount of its 12% senior secured notes due 2015 at an issue price of 97.944%.  The transaction was increased by $100 million above the amount previously announced.  The senior secured notes will be sold to qualified institutional buyers in accordance with Rule 144A and Regulation S under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”).  The offering is expected to settle on September 22, 2009, subject to customary closing conditions.

Virgin Media, the United Kingdom's leading entertainment and communications company, has enhanced the capacity in its existing submarine cable link between the UK mainland and Ireland using a next-generation optical solution from Nortel.

To meet the continually growing demand from bandwidth-hungry applications such as high-definition video, Australia Japan Cable (AJC), operator of the AJC cable system between Japan and Australia, and Pacific Crossing Limited (PCL), the operator of the lowest latency network across the Pacific, PC-1, have announced the launch of their Gigabit Ethernet Service for carrier, enterprise, and ISP customers looking for scalable, flexible connectivity options between Australia and North America.

Nortel has successfully trialed ground-breaking 40G optical technology across an ultra long distance submarine cable to prove that available bandwidth can be increased by over two times on Reliance Globalcom's transatlantic cable FA-1.

Two carriers have asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to determine if there is an openly competitive environment in the Bahamas for submarine cable systems.

Tata Communications is planning to increase the capacity of its Asian undersea cable to accommodate enterprise customers in the region, a company executive said recently.

Southern Cross Cable Network has announced a further price reduction and capacity boost for its fully protected undersea cable network that directly connects Australasian broadband users to Internet hubs in the United States.

Hibernia Atlantic has announced the company is now the first to offer native, 40 Gbps wavelength (WL) capacity across the Atlantic Ocean, without the need for external equipment. By deploying the latest 40G network technology, Hibernia has increased the potential capacity of the Atlantic system to 10.16 Tbps.

Hibernia Atlantic’s first-to-market offering is in response to its North American customers’ demand for greater bandwidth capacity, stemming from the precipitous rise in deployment of next-generation services, such as streaming video, IP multimedia and web conferencing. Additionally, financial exchanges and media houses need secure and high-performance capacity to ensure they are meeting their industries’ critical network requirements.

Nortel is enabling network operators to upgrade their undersea networks to 40G speeds, providing a simple way to quadruple network capacity while spanning distances thousands of kilometers across the world’s oceans.

As the world becomes more connected across countries, continents and cultures, the submarine networks that carry that network traffic beneath seas and oceans are increasingly nearing full capacity. Nortel’s submarine solutions are available today, have already been deployed or trailed by multiple carriers, and provide a cost-effective way to upgrade key network links without having to rip and replace complex underwater fiber deployments.

Southern Cross Cables and Nortel have successfully tested groundbreaking 40G optical technology across an ultra long distance submarine cable to prove that available bandwidth can be quadrupled without the need for costly re-engineering of the undersea network. The trial paves the way for a more cost-effective means for upgrading submarine networks around the world, which will help add network capacity needed to support growing demand for high-speed international Internet traffic without the need and expense to lay new cable systems.

Dominican Republic carrier Tricom has invested over 230 million pesos this year to expand its capacity to offer broadband Internet. 

The latest investment is the expansion of capacity on the Antillas-1 submarine cable, which links the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.  Tricom is one of the leading owners of Antillas-1, with a 37% stake in the cable.

Taiwan Mobile (TWM), an operator of mobile and fixed-line communication services in Taiwan, has said that it plans to increase the proportion of submarine cable capacity that it owns, rather than leases.

In a separate development, Zambia is now connected to the SAT-3 submarine cable that runs along the west coast of Africa into Europe.  Zambia is not impacted by the SAT-3 failure noted above. 

ZAMNET Communication Systems Limited, the pioneering Internet service provider in Zambia that introduced the Internet to Zambia in 1994, has successfully set up an Internet gateway into Europe using end-to-end fiber optics. This is the first such connection in Zambia and marks a milestone in the life of the Internet in Zambia, the company said.

Carriers and large end users in West Africa are scrambling to find alternatives for the Internet service following the loss of SAT-3 off the coast of Benin. 

As we noted on last week, most of the traffic from Nigeria’s leading Internet service provider, Suburban Telecom, is routed through Benin’s branch of SAT-3.  When the failure occurred on that branch, it caused widespread Internet outages and slowdowns in Nigeria.  The nature of the failure has not been announced and a cable ship is en route, but it could be another week before the cable is repaired.

Mada Jordan has completed the installation and operation of a fiber optic cable that connects Jordan to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through the Eastern border gate (Al-Omari). 

The new cable is connected to the Saudi Telecom network and links to Saudi Arabia’s international submarine cable stations at 10 Gbps, which secures a communication line for both telephone and Internet services in the Kingdom and links it to

Bharti Airtel has announced the completion of a new terrestrial cable network to Bhutan. As part of this initiative, Airtel has inked an MoU with the Royal Government of Bhutan to extend fiber connectivity to the Himalayan Kingdom.

The initiative will enable enterprises in Bhutan, to reach out to the world by accessing Bharti’s cable assets, through its International cable landing stations in Chennai and Mumbai. The terrestrial fiber optic link to Bhutan will be ring protected to ensure high uptime. The initiative is set to boost IT & telecommunication infrastructure in Bhutan to bring much needed diversity and improves telecommunications services in the region.

The news of the SAT-3 upgrade is coming at a time when an outage on the cable has cut off large portions of West Africa from the Internet.

The South Atlantic Cable-3 (SAT-3), currently the only international submarine cable serving West Africa, will see an upgrade starting this month that will nearly triple the cable’s capacity.

One major difference between the current global economic turmoil and the last downturn in 2002 is that very few telecom carriers are filing for bankruptcy.

According to a notice posted on its website, Southern Cross is currently evaluating an RFP for an upgrade of capacity in FY 2009/10.

France Telecom has increased capacity on the SEA-ME-WE-4 and TAT-14 submarine cables in the last three months to meet customers IP traffic transmission requirements generated by sustained growth in broadband transmission between the world's regions.

Summer is a notoriously slow time for new submarine fiber optic cable contract awards.  In the past two years, only one new contract has been announced in July or August, and that project was later cancelled.

Submarine fiber optic cable contract awards ended the first half of 2010 with a flourish, bringing the total route-kilometers awarded during the six month period to a respectable total.

2010 has been a slow year for supply contract announcements.  Through the first four months, only one, the Tata Gulf Cable, was announced publicly. In May, however, the pace of contract award announcements increased.

It is time to begin our monthly review of submarine cable contract awards for 2010.  To review how we track contract awards, we only count those that are publicly announced by either the cable builder or the supplier.  We do not count newspaper or other accounts that cannot be traced back to a public document released by one of the companies that is directly involved.

Monthly Review

Submarine Cable Contract Awards

Here is the final tally of submarine cable contract awards for 2009.  There was one new contract awarded during the month - a domestic submarine cable link in Libya known as the LPTIC T-E System awarded to Huawei Marine Networks.  This brings the final totals for the year to 16 contracts totaling just over 40,000 route-kilometers. 

One new submarine cable contract award was announced in November, putting the year to date totals at 15 contracts and over 38,500 route-kilometers of submarine fiber optic cable.

We are returning to our monthly summaries of submarine cable contract awards.  To review, our methodology for counting new contracts requires that one of the parties directly involved in the contract must make a public statement announcing the contract.  For those contracts that are never publicly announced, we count them when construction of the cable is reported to have begun.

A leading offshore communications provider has achieved a number of successes in recent months.  The company reports that it is expanding its existing networks and moving into new markets.

LS Cable has announced that it has succeeded in the development and commercialization of an umbilical cable, a composite cable for offshore engineering, for the first time in Korea.

North Sea Communications AS (NSC) is expanding its submarine fiber optic cable network serving oil and gas platforms in the North Sea.  The company, which is 100% owned by the TeliaSonera group, was established in 1998, with the single purpose to build and operate a fiber optical cable between Norway and the United Kingdom.

Ownership of a company operating a fiber optic network to provide communications services to offshore oil and gas platforms is about to change hands.

RigNet, a provider of managed communications solutions for the upstream oil and gas industry, announced that it has entered into a multi-year contract with Seahawk Drilling, a drilling services company focused on the Gulf of Mexico to provide managed remote communications for its fleet of offshore rigs.

Ocean Specialists, Inc. (OSI) has announced the introduction of its patented Portable Dynamic Riser (PDR) technology to the deepwater oil and gas industry.  The PDR is a portable, skid-mounted cable package that allows Mobile Offshore Drilling Units (MODUs) and other mobile assets to establish a connection to an in-field fiber optic network without the need to install a custom-designed dynamic riser.  The potential to provide virtually unlimited bandwidth to offshore drilling platforms opens the industry to significant new opportunities to improve the safety, efficiency and quality of its operations by providing real-time access to the industry’s most advanced technology, subject matter experts and best practices wherever they may be located world-wide.

Nexans has launched SHIPLINK™ as the new brand identity for its range of cable solutions and services for shipbuilding and offshore. The comprehensive scope includes power, data and control cables. With its vast product range, extensive global production and research facilities, Nexans is continuing to innovate and develop new technologies, products and services for shipbuilding with safety, reliability and environmental standards at their core.

MTN Ghana held a one-day workshop in April to discuss and explore the possibility of providing broadband network services to oil companies operating offshore in Ghana.

ABB has won an order worth $110 million from Eni Norway AS, to build a power link between a new oil and gas platform in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian power grid. The order was booked in the first quarter.

Nexans has completed a 3 million Euro contract for SBM Offshore (Single Buoy Moorings) to manufacture and supply the specialized offshore power, control and instrumentation cables for the conversion of the Espirito Santo FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) vessel serving the BC-10 deep water field development in the Campos Basin offshore Brazil.

Omantel, the Sultanate of Oman’s leading telecommunications carrier, has conducted a seminar that highlights its corporate business solutions to the oil and gas sector in the Sultanate, one of Omantel’s fastest growing and most innovative areas of business.

Leaders from ten global companies gathered in London today to announce publicly the formation of the “Friends of the Supergrid” (FOSG), which has been set up to progress policy towards the construction of a pan-European Offshore Supergrid. Through the combination of their respective areas of expertise, the FOSG members have unique insight into the policies needed to create the Supergrid and have the capability to deliver it in practice.

Nexans, a global leader in cables and cabling solutions, is using its presence at the upcoming OTC 2010 event in Houston to highlight its full range of cabling solutions and its umbilical cables expertise based on innovative technologies that provide reliable solutions for complex oil and gas projects, onshore and offshore, topside and subsea. In the technical session on the morning of Wednesday May 5, Bjørn Roger Slora, Senior Specialist of Nexans in Norway will present a paper on “Qualification of Dynamic Deepwater Power Cable” introducing some new state-of-the-art technology that addresses the implications of subsea processing power distribution on field architecture. He will also be available on the Nexans booth to discuss more in detail this subject after the conference.

NKT Cables has signed a contract with Energinet.dk, to connect the Anholt Offshore Wind Farm with Jutland. The order has a value of approximately 18 million euros.

Global Marine Systems, a leading provider of subsea power cable installation and maintenance services, has announced that its Energy Division, along with its project partner, Visser & Smit Marine Contracting has been awarded the contract to install four offshore export cables and installation and burial of 175 array cables as part of the building of the first 630MW phase of the London Array offshore wind farm in the Thames Estuary.

Aker Solutions has signed a contract with Repsol Investigaciones Petroliferas S.A. for delivery of subsea equipment to the Spanish oil company's Mediterranean wells. Contract value is approximately NOK 120 million.

Prysmian has been awarded a 18 million euro contract by the Danish utility DONG Energy to supply a complete 132 kV export cable system for the second phase of the Walney Offshore Wind Farm project, in the Irish Sea. This project is expected to be completed by summer 2011.

The developers of the largest offshore wind farm to date, known as the London Array Offshore Wind Farm, has awarded another contract for cables.

As we noted in yesterday’s NewsFeed, Nexans has won a contract worth approximately 100 million Euros to design, manufacture and supply the high voltage subsea power export cables that will connect the London Array wind farm to the UK grid. The contract was placed with Nexans by the consortium of DONG Energy, E.ON and Masdar, which is currently building the world’s largest offshore wind farm in the Thames Estuary.

The United Kingdom is now the world’s largest market for offshore wind farm development, taking over the top spot from Denmark late last year.  There are more than 30 offshore wind farms being planned in U.K. waters and many more are possible with the recent agreement for the North Sea Offshore Grid Initiative.

Nexans has been awarded a 50 million Euro contract by Centrica to design, manufacture and supply the high voltage (HV) subsea power export cables for the Lincs wind farm project. The new wind farm is being constructed eight kilometers off the coast of England, to the east of Skegness in the county of Lincolnshire.

Nexans has been awarded a contract worth around 6 million Euros by Sevmash, Russia’s largest shipbuilding company, to develop, manufacture and supply low-temperature and ice-resistant control, instrumentation and power cables for the marine ice-protected Prirazlomnaya stationary oil production platform in the Barents Sea.

Norwegian cable manufacturer Draka has expanded its subsea power solutions for the offshore wind energy market. The company has expanded its production capabilities to further enhance the production of medium-voltage XLPE power cables up to 36 kV.

Nexans has won a contract worth approximately 39 million Euros to supply the subsea power export cables for phase I of the Belgian Belwind Offshore Windfarm project, located on the Bligh Bank, 46km off the coast of Zeebrugge. On project completion, Nexans’ cable technology will transmit environmentally friendly power to some 165,000 households in Belgium. Belwind NV is owned by Colruyt, Rabobank Project Equity, SHV, Meewind and Participatie Maatschappij Vlaanderen.

Nexans has secured a frame agreement with BP Exploration & Production Inc. for deep water umbilical projects in the Gulf of Mexico that could be worth as much as $300 million in total. The frame agreement is initially for one year; however, BP has the right to extend the agreement for an additional four-year period.

Seabed Power, a leading provider of subsea power cable installation and maintenance services, has announced the award of a contract by Ormonde Energy Limited, a subsidiary of Vattenfall AB for the transportation, installation and testing of 132kV export and 33kV array submarine cables for Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm.

The Botany Bay Cable Project is a key element of EnergyAustralia’s plans to provide a reliable supply of electricity to power users in the southern, eastern and inner suburbs of Sydney.

The project involves installing cables between substations at Kurnell and Matraville via Botany Bay and associated works at each of those substations.

The cable installation will be carried out through excavation in local road reserves, along with submarine cables across Botany Bay and bores beneath the Botany Bay National Park at La Perouse.

Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia have signed a memorandum of understanding concerning a non-commercial infrastructure project aimed at linking the Baltic and Nordic electricity markets.

Svenska Kraftnat (Sweden) and the public institution Central Project Management Agency (CPMA) signed the memorandum on behalf of the consortium with Lietuvos Energija AB, Latvenergo (Latvia), seeking to establish the objective to implement the project.

Seabed Power, a leading provider of subsea power cable installation and maintenance services, announced the award of two contracts by DONG Walney (UK) Limited for the transportation and installation (laying and burial) of more than 92km 33kV array cables and 44 and 43km 132kV export cables in two different routes for Walney Offshore Wind Farm project.

Being constructed by Dong Energy, Walney Offshore Wind Farm is located in the East Irish Sea, west of Morecambe Bay, approximately 15km off the coastline of Walney Island and is an important element of the second round of wind development in United Kingdom.

Prysmian, a worldwide leading Group in the sector of cables and systems for energy and telecommunications, has been awarded a major project by Ormonde Energy Ltd (a Vattenfall AB owned company) for the development of submarine power cable connections for the new Ormonde Wind Farm project. The contract amounts to €27 million with the delivery of cables expected during 2010.

The Ormonde Wind Farm is located approximately 10km west of Walney Island, Barrow-in-Furness, in the Irish Sea, and it is rated at 150MW. In particular, Prysmian is involved in

JDR Cables Systems Ltd. has been awarded a contract for the supply of submarine power cables for the UK’s ground breaking Wave Hub project by the South West RDA (Regional Development Agency).

JDR Cable Systems has opened its new deepwater quayside facility at Hartlepool dock in North East England.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of Bahrain has issued an updated study on what it calls the “Internet Ecosystem” in Bahrain. The study, conducted by the Internet intelligence authority Renesys, is providing a comprehensive overview of the evolving relationships between Bahrain's Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the international telecommunications carriers serving Bahrain and the Region.

A dispute involving access to a submarine cable landing station has been resolved by the national telecom regulator, stating that the need to fair and reasonable access to international cables is essential to the development of the broadband market.

As competition increases throughout the telecommunications industry, the issue of monopoly control over submarine fiber optic cable capacity has once again come to the forefront.

IConnect Wholesale, Inc., d/b/a TeleCuba, has asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for a waiver of the International Settlements Policy (ISP) and the benchmark rate under the 1997 Benchmarks Policy for facilities-based telecommunications services between the United States and Cuba.

A parliamentary standing committee for the Bangladesh Post and Telecommunications Ministry is looking into several proposals to improve the submarine cable market in the country.

The Cambodian Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has announced plans to open a domestic and international Internet exchange for the country in an effort to centralize Internet bandwidth provisioning.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has liberalized the overseas investment rules for Indian companies wanting to become members of submarine cable consortia by extending the “automatic route” to investments.

The Kenya Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Board, the state corporation charged with developing and promoting the business process outsourcing sector (BPO), has extended the deadline for bandwidth capacity support to the BPO industry.

The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) plans to begin regulating Internet prices in two months if operators do not reduce them on their own.

The Kenyan and Ethiopian governments have entered into discussions to connect their respective national fiber optic backbones.  As we reported recently, a number of East African submarine cable operators are interested in connecting landlocked Ethiopia’s traffic to their cables.  The government of Kenya, which is an investor in one of the cables (TEAMS), also is interested in the connection with Ethiopia to add resiliency to its network.

Mohammed Omran, Etisalat’s Chairman, stressed the importance of flexibility in laws and legislation governing the telecommunications sector to help stimulate continued growth of the sector. This came during his participation at the ITU Telecom World conference, which is taking place under the theme "Open Networks – Connected Minds" in Geneva.

Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) plans to sell unused international bandwidth on the SEA-ME-WE-4 submarine cable system to carriers in landlocked Nepal and Bhutan.  Both countries have already expressed interest in buying the Internet capacity.

Fiji has opened its international gateway market, allowing new carriers to compete with Fiji International Telecommunications Ltd. (FINTEL).

Cote d'Ivoire’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies has initiated a tax on all incoming international telecom traffic, including transit traffic.

STT Communications Ltd (STTC), a subsidiary of Singapore Technologies Telemedia (ST Telemedia), has made an offer to buy leading Irish carrier Eircom Holdings Ltd.

The Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, has announced fundamental reforms to existing telecommunications regulations in the interests of Australian consumers and businesses.

The government of Botswana is planning to privatize Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC)', but will exclude the company’s trans-Kalahari fiber optic cable backbone.

In the Submarine Cable Fee Order, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) changed its methodology for calculating regulatory fees for international submarine cable licensees.  This change in methodology became effective on July 15, 2009, after the 90-day congressional notification period expired.

In an advertisement published on July 14 in several domestic and international publications, the Government of The Commonwealth of The Bahamas issued a Notice of Privatization and announced the launch of the process to sell a 51% stake in The Bahamas Telecommunications Company Ltd. The Notice encourages interested parties to participate in the registration and pre-qualification process.

Existing Submarine Cable Systems

VTLWaveNet, Huawei announce 100G network upgrade

VTLWaveNet, part of the Viatel Group, and Huawei announced the completion of phase one of its 100G network upgrade in Europe. The WDM platform is now fully operational for 10G, 40G and 100G services between London and Paris.

Suppliers

Huawei Marine achieve breakeven by year-end 2012

Although a relatively new supplier with large investment plans in the early years, Huawei Marine achieved breakeven at the end of 2012 after only four years of operation, passing a huge internal milestone and offering competitive solutions to its customers.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Omantel comments on involvement in BBG

Following up on previous announcements by the Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) consortium, Omantel announced that it signed the BBG agreement as well. This new submarine fiber optic cable will enhance the robustness and reliability of international connectivity between Oman and the rest of the world through another direct connection to Singapore, with additional landing points in UAE, India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Tunisian carriers sign agreement with Interoute

Tunisiana and Orange Tunisia announced the signing of a partnership agreement with Interoute, the owner operator of Europe’s largest next generation network, for the commissioning of a submarine cable, called Didon, connecting the city of Kélibia, Tunisia to Interoute’s pan European fiber optic network, via its landing station in Mazara del Vallo, Siciliy, Italy. Didon, Tunisia’s first private submarine cable will cover nearly 170 km of optical fiber and be a real force for social development and economic growth for the country. The commissioning of the Didon cable is planned for April 2014 and its capacity will reach eight Terabit per second and per operator.

New Submarine Cable Systems

KT wins installation contract from NEC

KT Submarine has signed an agreement with Japan's NEC to install submarine fiber optic cables in the Asia-Pacific region for a project that NEC is supplying. The contract amount is estimated at 40.6 billion won.

Existing Submarine Cable Networks

Columbus Networks, CWC form JV

Columbus Networks and CWC Wholesale Solutions announced the formation of a joint venture to provide expanded wholesale bandwidth capacity to global, regional and local communications companies in the Caribbean and Americas Region. The joint venture company will be called CNL-CWC Networks Ltd.

Existing Submarine Cable Systems

GlobeNet opens fastest US-Brazil IP traffic route

GlobeNet, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oi, has extended its low latency network into Equinix's MI3 International Business Exchange(TM) (IBX(R)) data center in Boca Raton, Florida. GlobeNet's expansion into Equinix's MI3 data center opens the fastest IP traffic route from the United States to Brazil.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Ghana inaugurates ACE

The official launch of services in Ghana on the ACE submarine fiber optic cable took place on May 12 at the cable landing station in Accra.  ACE is a 17,000-kilometer cable covering the West Coast of Africa.  The cable was announced ready for service in December.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Telekom Malaysia discusses BBG

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) continues to play an integral role in providing connectivity diversity and elevating the region's telecommunications efficiency level when the company recently signed an agreement with five other regional telco players -- Vodafone Group, UAE's Etisalat, Sri Lanka's Dialog Axiata, India's Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, and Omantel of Oman -- forming a consortium for the establishment of the Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) submarine cable system.

New Submarine Cable Systems

American Samoa may need a second cable

American Samoa may have to build a new submarine fiber optic cable system meet growing demand for Internet bandwidth.  The new cable may be needed in two years.

Existing Submarine Cable Systems

SEACOM, Epsilon interconnect

Epsilon Telecommunications, the world’s largest global telecommunications network exchange, has signed an interconnection agreement with privately owned communications service provider SEACOM. With SEACOM preconnected, Epsilon can offer its customers network connectivity to Africa via the SEACOM submarine fiber optic cable network as well as carrying African telecommunications traffic globally. Customers of SEACOM in turn have access to Epsilon’s 450+ preconnected network operators around the world.

Monthly Review
Submarine Fiber Optic Cable Upgrade Announcements

This is our latest review of submarine fiber optic cable upgrade announcements in 2013.  These announcements include new contract awards, completion of upgrades and future upgrade plans for which contracts have not been awarded as yet.

Monthly Review
Submarine Power Cable Contract Awards

This is our latest monthly review of submarine power cable contract awards for 2013.  The market was strong last year with an average of two new contract awards announced each month and 2013 is growing at an even higher rate.

Monthly Review
Submarine Fiber Optic Cable Project Announcements

This is our latest listing of submarine fiber optic cable announcements for 2013.  Tracking announcements of new systems gives some insight into the level of optimism in the industry for the need for new cables and the ability to raise money to build them, even if these cables do not ultimately get built.

Monthly Review
Submarine Fiber Optic Cable Contract Awards

This is our latest monthly review of new submarine fiber optic cable contract awards for 2013.  The year has started out strongly with major new supply contracts awarded in the first four months representing about three times as many route-kilometers as the same period last year.

Suppliers

Xtera expands turnkey offering and joins ICPC

Xtera Communications Inc. announced further steps to expand its footprint in the turnkey solutions market in conjunction with the recent introduction of its repeater at SubOptic 2013 in Paris, France.  The company says it has significantly increased its internal and external skillset to support full turnkey projects, and that it has been accepted as a full member of the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC).

New Submarine Cable Systems

Alcatel-Lucent wins contract for Bay of Bengal Gateway

Alcatel-Lucent and a consortium composed of Vodafone Group, Dialog Axiata, Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat), Reliance Jio Infocomm, Omantel and Telekom Malaysia, have signed a turn-key contract to deploy a new 100 Gigabit-per-second (100G) submarine cable system to connect Oman, the United Arab Emirates, India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

Marine Services

France Telecom Marine to acquire a new cable ship

France Telecom Marine, Orange's subsidiary specialized in the installation and maintenance of submarine cables for the telecommunications sector, has announced the extension of its activities to cover the marine-based renewable energy sector. To position itself in this new sector, France Telecom Marine has ordered a new cable ship that will be operational by the summer of 2014.

Marine Services

ACE, Alcatel-Lucent sign maintenance service agreement

Alcatel-Lucent and the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) consortium have signed a contract for the maintenance of more than 6,300 kilometers of the ACE system linking Africa to Portugal.  In commercial service since December 2012, ACE interconnects today 15 African countries, seven of which has been connected to the global Internet backbone for the first time.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Reliance Globalcom activates Mobily on Hawk

Reliance Communications' submarine fiber optic cable unit, Reliance Globalcom, said Saudi Arabia based Mobily has become its first customer to be activated on the recently launched Hawk submarine cable system.

Technology

OSF announces fiber designed for 100 Gb/s technology

OFS, a leading designer, manufacturer and supplier of innovative fiber optic network products, has introduced TeraWave(TM) ULA Ocean Fiber, a new single-mode fiber designed for 100 Gb/s coherent transport in submarine systems for distances up to 12,000 km.

New Submarine Cable Systems

GlobeNet completes construction of Bermuda-US (Segment 5) replacement

GlobeNet, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oi, has completed construction on its new high capacity subsea cable system (Segment 5). The new subsea cable system has a total design capacity of 30Tb/s and links Bermuda and the United States. The build was first announced in January 2012 and will provide more than 30 times the previously lit capacity between Bermuda and the United States.

Technology

Infinera grows 100G subsea network footprint

Infinera announced that its DTN-X platform with ultra-long haul 500G FlexCoherent™ super-channel technology is now being deployed in eight subsea networks across approximately 38,000 route kilometers of undersea fiber. Infinera has publicly announced the DTN-X platform in submarine networks with customers including Telefonica, MedNautilus, PIPE Networks, PACNET and KDDI.

Technology

SubCom sets record for transpacific transmission
 
TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, announced that its engineers have demonstrated record-breaking transpacific transmission using both 200Gb/s and 400Gb/s data channels.  The results, presented at the recent post deadline session of the 2013 OFC/NFOEC conference in Anaheim, CA, demonstrated a total capacity on a single fiber pair of 21Tb/s transmitted over more than 10,000km at a spectral efficiency of 6b/s/Hz. This achievement was enabled by careful engineering of the transmitted signals, in order to achieve both long-distance performance and high spectral utilization.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Telx secures new US-Brazil connections with Seaborn

Telx® announced that Seaborn Networks, the developer and operator of the first direct submarine cable between the New York metro area and Sao Paulo, Seabras-1, is establishing new gateways to Brazil in several of Telx's NYC metro area facilities. Seabras-1 gateways will operate out of Telx's soon to be completed flagship facility, NJR3, located within Telx's fully-owned data center campus in Clifton, NJ, along with Telx's NYC1 facility at 60 Hudson Street and NYC2 facility at 111 8th Avenue, both in New York City.

New Submarine Cable Systems

SubCom wins Chevron contract
 
TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, announced that a contract was signed with Chevron U.S.A. Inc. to connect the Jack & St. Malo offshore facility with an undersea fiber optic communications system in the deepwater U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Under terms of the contract awarded to TE SubCom in November 2012, the cable system is slated for completion in May 2014.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Sea Fibre Networks looks to expand cable system

Irish submarine fiber optic cable operator Sea Fibre Networks (SFN) is planning to expand its existing Ireland-Wales cable system to England and France.

New Submarine Cable Systems

CAT plans link to Myanmar

The Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) has announced plans for a submarine fiber optic cable lnik between Thailand and Myanmar.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Reliance activates Hawk in Egypt

Reliance Globalcom has activated the Hawk submarine fiber optic cable in Egypt, adding another 20 Tbps of capacity that will enable consistent capacity levels between Europe, the Middle East, and India.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Updates on Pacific cable projects

A 2,000-kilometer domestic submarine fiber optic cable along Russia’s Pacific coast is reportedly back on track, according to the Prime News Agency.  The cable system, announced last year, would link Sakhalin Island, the city of Magadan and the Kamchatka Peninsula.

New Submarine Cable Systems

New plans emerge of Australian cable

Australian technology company Geonexus has re-started an effort to land a submarine fiber optic cable on Australia’s Sunshine Coast.  Such a project was originally discussed last year by the local government, but no action was taken.

New Submarine Cable Systems

BRICS cable update

Leaders of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) met recently in Durban, South Africa to discuss a number of economic issues, including the plan to build the BRICS submarine fiber optic cable.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Finland studies Baltic link

The Finnish government is considering the building of an international submarine fiber optic cable that will improve the country’s telecommunications redundancy and security.

Monthly Review
Submarine Fiber Optic Cable Upgrade Announcements

This is our latest review of submarine fiber optic cable upgrade announcements in 2013.  These announcements include new contract awards, completion of upgrades and future upgrade plans for which contracts have not been awarded as yet.

Monthly Review
Submarine Power Cable Contract Awards

This is our latest monthly review of submarine power cable contract awards for 2013.  The market was strong last year with an average of two new contract awards announced each month.

Monthly Review
Submarine Fiber Optic Cable Project Announcements

This is our latest listing of submarine fiber optic cable announcements for 2013.  Tracking announcements of new systems gives some insight into the level of optimism in the industry for the need for new cables and the ability to raise money to build them, even if these cables do not ultimately get built.

Monthly Review
Submarine Fiber Optic Cable Contract Awards

This is our latest monthly review of new submarine fiber optic cable contract awards for 2013.  The year has started out strongly with major new supply contracts awarded in the first three months representing about twice as many route-kilometers as the same period last year.

Marine Services

Carriers report on Mediterranean cable outages

Indian carrier Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has commented on the submarine fiber optic cable outages currently impacting Internet traffic through the Mediterranean.

Marine Services

Egypt arrests three for cable sabotage

The Egyptian military says that it has arrested three people for attempting to cut a submarine fiber optic cable off Alexandria.  It is not clear if the trio had succeeded in cutting the cable – SEA-ME-WE-4 – but that cable did suffer an outage last week.

Marine Services

SEA-ME-WE-4 outage disrupts service

Carriers and cable operators are reporting that damage to submarine fiber optic cable systems in the Mediterranean is impacting Internet access in Asia and Africa.  As is usually the case in these situations, there are conflicting reports in the global media as to exactly what is happening.  The following information comes directly from two of the carriers involved.

New Submarine Cable Systems

SubPartners announces executive appointments

SubPartners, an Australian initiative planning to build submarine fiber optic cables connecting Australia with Singapore and the United States, has announced the addition of two new team members. Rajneil Sharan has been appointed as Chief Financial Officer and Matt Whitlock is the Head of Operations at SubPartners for the APX projects.

Marine Services

SEACOM restoration complete

SEACOM has completed the restoration of the majority of its customers on the SEACOM submarine fiber optic cable system link that was cut between Egypt and Europe.  SEACOM customers that are using this SEACOM link should now see their services returning to normal.

New Submarine Cable Systems

SubCom awarded POSEIDON contract

TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, has been contracted by Ocean Specialists, Inc. (OSI) as the supplier of the POSEIDON project, a high-capacity undersea cable system that will enable advanced communications for the oil and gas industry in the Eastern Mediterranean region.

Existing Submarine Cable Systems

SEACOM issues statement on outage

In response to an outage on its East African submarine fiber optic cable system, SEACOM has issued the following statement:

Existing Submarine Cable Systems

Pacnet deploys Infinera DTN-X with 500 Gbps super-channels

Infinera and Pacnet, a leading provider of integrated network and technology solutions in the Asia-Pacific region, announced Pacnet’s deployment of the Infinera DTN-X platform, featuring 500 Gbps long-haul super-channels.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Telstra teams with SubPartners for Perth-Singapore link

Telstra has entered into a non-binding MOU with submarine cable group SubPartners, whereby it would prospectively acquire one of the direct Perth-Singapore fiber pairs of the APX West submarine cable.

Technology

AT&T Labs transmits 495 Gbps of data over 12,000 kilometers

AT&T Labs researchers presented data from a recent test that set a record for long-distance network speeds at the Optical Fiber Communication and National Fiber Optics Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC), taking place this week.

Technology

Fujitsu to show 100G technology at OFC/NFOEC 2013

With the OFC/NFOEC 2013 show in Anaheim, California, taking place this week, we will be highlighting some of the new products and technologies from the show.

New Submarine Cable Systems

Globe links Palawan to the rest of the Philippines

To support the heightening tourism and business activities in the Western portion of the Philippines, Globe has successfully landed a 400-kilometer submarine fiber optic cable in Palawan, which will function as a superhighway of telecommunications services between Puerto Princesa City to the main Luzon island and the rest of the country and the world via San Jose, Mindoro, making the company the first telco to fiberize the area. It is also the first-ever fiber optic backbone connecting Palawan to the rest of the Philippines and globally.

Existing Submarine Cable Systems

Reliance picks Ciena for FA-1 South upgrade

Ciena® Corporation announced that Reliance Globalcom is upgrading its trans-Atlantic FA-1 South submarine network with Ciena’s GeoMesh solution. This upgrade will help Reliance Globalcom to better address growing global bandwidth demand for cloud computing, video and other high-bandwidth services, along the critical trans-Atlantic corridor.

New Submarine Cable Systems

FCC grants license for USVI cable

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted a cable landing license to viNGN, a public corporation located in the U.S. Virgin Islands, for the purpose of landing and operating a non-common carrier fiber-optic submarine cable system directly linking the islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix, USVI.

Existing Submarine Cable Systems

ECI transports coherent 100G on Jonah

ECI Telecom has successfully transported non-regenerated 100G traffic, via the Jonah international submarine fiber optic cable, owned by Israel’s Bezeq International. The data was transmitted by the Apollo OMLT over a total distance of 4,600 km, from Tel Aviv to Bari, Italy, and back.

Existing Submarine Cable Systems

SEACOM upgrades with Ciena technology

SEACOM has selected Ciena Corporation’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform and OneControl Unified Management System for the upgrade of its submarine network across the Southern and Eastern African coastlines. This falls in line with SEACOM’s focus on driving the development of the African internet and opening the broadband tap for African consumers.

Existing Submarine Cable Systems

Cyprus, Lebanon sign submarine cable agreements

The Lebanese Ministry of Telecommunications (LMoT) and the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (Cyta), a corporate body wholly owned by the Republic of Cyprus, have entered into an agreement to cooperate by sharing capacity on Cyta’s ALEXANDROS cable subsystem between Cyprus–Egypt–France, thereby creating reciprocal Eurasia and Eastern Mediterranean business opportunities. As part of this cooperation, LMoT will acquire multiple capacity connectivity to France and Egypt, thus enhancing the robustness of Lebanon’s international access through physical diversity and significant increase in bandwidth.