Telecommunications giant Orange has partnered with PCCW Global and Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) Cable International to deploy a new submarine cable to connect Europe, through East Africa, to Asia by 2021.

The new 12 000 km submarine cable, PEACE Med, will link France to Pakistan through a single landing point in the city of Marseille by 2021.

Linking the city of Mombasa, in Kenya, through a short route towards the Indian Ocean will ensure optimum latency.

The cable will extend to South Africa in the future, reaching a total of 15 000 km.

The objective is also to find alternative routes and to reduce its dependence on the EASSy cable, which links Djibouti to South Africa.

France-based Orange will supply and operate the cable landing station in Marseille, linking it to one of the city’s major data centres, and making it a gateway to the European network and the Americas.

“For Orange, PEACE is a major investment, as it will provide greater route diversity, improved connection security and guaranteed support for increased capacity across all regions in the Indian Ocean zone, particularly Réunion and Mayotte,” explains Orange Wholesale and International Networks CEO Jérôme Barré.

Orange has acquired 500 GB/s of capacity on the cable between Marseille and Kenya to support the growth of traffic in the Indian Ocean.

The draft agreement was announced in November 2018, and the final agreement was signed in September.

This agreement also marks the arrival of the first Chinese private submarine cable in France.

Hong Kong-registered PEACE Cable International, an open and neutral submarine cable system, is wholly owned by information and energy network service provider Hengtong Optic-Eectric.

PCCW Global is the international operating division of Hengtong.

“The PEACE project has progressed very well and the equipment manufacturing [is] more than 60% [complete],” adds PEACE CEO and Hengtong VP Wu Qianjun.

“The system will be ready for service on time, based on its schedule. “We are confident PEACE will provide low-cost capacity for those fast-growing regions and enhance the routing diversity in Asia, Africa and Europe.”