Alcatel-Lucent wins US$500 million African submarine cable contract

Alcatel-Lucent has signed a turnkey contract worth more than US$500 million with the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable network. ACE will link Cape Town in South Africa to Penmarch in France via a 17,000 kilometre cable, offering 40 Gigabits per second of capability, with a design capacity of 5.12 Terabits per second. The consortium is headed by France Telecom-Orange and consists of 20 operators.

Upon expected commercial launch in the first half of 2012, the network will bring broadband optical data connectivity for the first time to the people of Mauritania, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sao Tome and Principe, and Equatorial Guinea.

The other operators in the consortium are: Baharicom Development Company, Benin Telecoms, Cable Consortium of Liberia, Orange Cameroun, Companhia Santomense de Telecomunicações, Côte d’Ivoire Telecom, Expresso Telecom Group, Gambia Telecommunications Company, International Mauritania Telecom, Office Congolais des Postes et Télécommunication, Orange Guinea, Orange Mali, Orange Niger, PT Comunicações, the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, the Gabonese Republic, Sierra Leone Cable, Société des Télécommunications de Guinée and Sonatel.

ACE’s costal route will link South Africa to France via Namibia, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, The Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, Tenerife (Spain) and Portugal, and will have 21 landing points along the route.