The SeaMeWe-6 cable has landed in Marseille, France.
The 21,700km (13,500 miles) cable links France and Singapore and is planned to have 17 landing points in 15 countries.
Orange was the landing partner of this portion of the cable. Work will now begin on the next 3,000km (1,870 miles) installation of the cable to Egypt.
The SeaMeWe-6 cable is planned to offer a capacity of over 130Tbps and Orange said the cable will have access to all of Marseille’s data centers via a fiber optic ring.
“We are delighted with the arrival of this new route, which will allow us to offer a new solution for high-speed, high-performance “express” connectivity between France and Asia as well as improved speeds to our sites in the Indian Ocean,” said Jean-Louis Le Roux, director of international networks at Orange.
He added: “Our network will also allow our wholesale customers to join many international networks to Asia, as well as Africa and the Americas. The arrival of this new cable in Marseille once again places France at the heart of the European hub, with direct access to major European cities.”
The telco added that the cable has been fastened with specially designed anchors to avoid drag phenomenon and the cable route has been optimized to follow seabed topography as closely as possible.
Other landing partners of the SeaMeWe-6 cable are Batelco, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), Bharti Airtel, China Unicom, Dhiraagu, Djibouti Telecom, Microsoft, Mobily, PCCW, Singtel, Sri Lanka Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Telekom Malaysia, Telin, and Transworld.
In a recent LinkedIn post, the senior manager at Batelco Rohitash Bhaskar, said: “This remarkable achievement strengthens global connectivity and enables seamless communication between Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.”
The fiber pairs on the trunk of the cable from Bahrain to Oman - known as Al Khaleej - are fully owned by Batelco. Airtel has privately owned fiber pairs extending from Singapore to Mumbai and Chennai.
When complete, the SeaMeWe-6 cable will land in Manama, Bahrain; Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh; Djibouti City, Djibouti; Port Said, Egypt; Ras Ghareb, Egypt; Marseille, France; Chennai, India; Mumbai, India; Morib, Malaysia; Hulhumale, Maldives; Muscat, Oman; Karachi, Pakistan; Doha, Qatar; Yanbu, Saudi Arabia; Tuas, Singapore; Matara, Sri Lanka; and Abu Dhabi, UAE.
The cable was planned to include China, however, China Mobile and China Telecom both withdrew from the project in 2023 after growing tensions between the US and China.
The SeaMeWe-6 cable is the eleventh cable to land in Marseille, with the other cables being the Asia Africa Europe 1 cable (AAE-1); Atlas Offshore; Blue; Hawk; IMEWE; Med Cable Network; Medloop; PEACE cable; Sea-Me-We 4; TE North/TGN; and the Eurasia/Seacom/Alexandros/Medex cable.
The 2Africa and Africa-1 cables, both connecting Marseille with Africa and the Middle East, are set to go live later this year. The Medusa Submarine Cable system is also set to land in Marseille and is expected to go live in 2025.
Orange hosts more than 40 submarine cables around the world, particularly on the Europe-Asia route through its participation in the SeaMeWe-3, SeaMeWe-4, SeaMeWe-5, and IMEWE consortia.
Last month, the SeaMeWe 5 cable, completed in 2017, was damaged and caused outages across Bangladesh.
