Its 25,000km, six-fibre-pair, 72Tbps subsea cable will connect Africa and Asia to the Americas using a new diverse and seismically calm route, evading the serious risks of the Pacific.
The first phase of the SAEx project will cross the Atlantic Ocean by linking the South Atlantic section of the cable from Cape Town to Brazil, before reaching the US East Coast with a landing in New Jersey.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sparkle will provide connectivity from Brazil to the US on an operational fibre system. In addition, Sparkle will also provide interconnection facilities in Brazil as well as technical and sales support in Brazil and North America.
The news aligns itself with SAEx’s commitment to grow both west and east from South Africa says SAEx, creating a truly global system spanning two oceans and four continents. While at the same time reinforcing Sparkle’s role in the leading position in its ability to provide low latency connectivity solutions and end-to-end support.
In August, Capacity spoke to SAEx International CEO, Dr Rosalind Thomas about the progress of the project and the significance of it to the region.
During the interview Thomas said: “One issue that SAEx does address is we avoid the dependency that many African countries have had in terms of trade and to a degree air links, which is always having to follow the patterns established in the colonial past with dependency on accessing the developed world through ties to Europe’s ‘Empires of the Past’.”
>>> TO READ THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH SAEx’s Dr Rosalind Thomas, PLEASE CLICK HERE <<<
