A marine survey to verify an initial research for the construction of a 60Tbps Kenya-Pakistan subsea cable has kicked off, a Huawei official has said. Thereafter, system installation will begin.
In November 2017, Huawei Marine the firm spearheading the project announced that it had commenced work on Desktop Study and Marine Survey works in conjunction with key investor Tropic Science to construct the Pakistan East Africa Cable Express (PEACE) submarine cable, which connects South Asia with East Africa.
With initial work underway, the Kenya-Pakistan subsea cable is targeted for completion in Q4, 2019.
The project, has a total length of 13,000km, and will connect South Asia (Pakistan) and East Africa (Djibouti) and Kenya, with a northern expansion to Egypt and further southern expansion from Kenya to South Africa.
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The project will facilitate connectivity from China to Pakistan via existing terrestrial cable networks and create the shortest route from China to Europe via Africa.
This network topology substantially reduces existing network lengths by up to 50% and when completed, will provide a cost-effective, diverse route for the escalating demand for capacity between Asia, Africa and Europe.
Tropical Science believes Africa’s market capacity is more attractive than many other regions as its networks are developing rapidly and the number of internet users in Africa is also growing at an unprecedented rate.
The construction of this international information highway will become an important enabler of East Africa’s telecommunications as well as its social and economic development in future.
Mao Shengjiang, COO of Huawei Marine said: “We are pleased to commence work on this important project to ensure a timely delivery programme. Our customer-centric focus and commitment to quality and on-time delivery, is a hallmark of our company values. I would like to thank Tropical Science and our other partners for their trust in Huawei Marine.”
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In October, at the 3rd Asia Pacific Submarine Networks Forum, Tropic Science, China-ASEAN Information Harbor, China Construction Bank and Huawei Marine signed and MOU for the construction of the PEACE submarine cable project.