The Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 6 (SEA-ME-WE 6) consortium has selected SubCom for the supply and installation of the group’s planned 19,200-km submarine cable, the two parties say. SEA-ME-WE 6 will link Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Western Europe at 12 locations from Singapore to France. The contract for these services is in force and work has begun, the partners add.
The system comprises three segments: a submarine segment from Tuas (Singapore) to Ras Ghareb (Egypt), a terrestrial segment from Ras Ghareb (Egypt) to Port Said (Egypt), and another subsea segment from Port Said (Egypt) to Marseilles (France). The fiber pair capacities for each network segment have been individually designed, together with the segment fiber pair counts, the two organizations say. The system will feature multi-terabit capacity end to end.
SubCom will deploy SL17-SDM cable that supports up to 24 fiber pairs (FP). The network will leverage SubCom’s 18-kV power source technology, which will enable SEA-ME-WE 6 to maintain operations with single-end feed power in the event there is a far-end fault. SubCom also will supply its Enhanced Branching Unit (eBU), which provides flexible electrical power and optical fiber routing with shore-based telemetry control. SubCom will perform production of the cable and equipment at its manufacturing campus in Newington, NH.
The consortium behind SEA-ME-WE 6 comprises BSCCL, Bharti Airtel, Dhiraagu, Djibouti Telecom, Mobily, Orange, Singtel, Sri Lanka Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Telin, TM, and TWA. The group expects the system to achieve ready for service by the first quarter of 2025.
“With this new cable system, our partners will be able to meet and exceed capacity demands across multiple regions,” said Yue Meng Fai, chairperson of the SEA-ME-WE 6 Management Committee and senior director, consortium cable engineering, at Singtel. “This new, reliable, and resilient system encompasses some of the most advanced transmission technologies in the world and will improve access to services for everyone along this route.”
“SubCom is honored to drive the design, manufacture, and deployment of SEA-ME-WE 6, a system that will reach more than 11 countries and benefit hundreds of communities beyond,” said David Coughlan, CEO of SubCom. “We maintain the industry’s most advanced technology portfolio and marine installation capabilities, all of which will contribute to a successful project on behalf of the SEA-ME-WE 6 Consortium.”
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