SAex

SAex (South Atlantic Express Cable)
Cable typeFibre-optic
FatePlanned
Construction beginning2019[1]
First traffic2021 (planned)[2]
Design capacity108 TBit/s[3]
Landing points
Area servedSouth Africa, Namibia, Saint Helena and Brazil
Owner(s)SAEx International Ltd [1]
Websitewww.saex.net

SAex (South Atlantic Express) is a proposed submarine communications cable linking South Africa to the United States with branches to Namibia, Saint Helena, and Brazil.

The project was announced in 2011 by eFive Telecoms (Pty) Ltd, who led the project during the early feasibility studies. In November 2013 South Atlantic Express Cable Company (Pty) Ltd took over responsibility and was renamed to SimplCom South Africa (Pty) Ltd after SimplCom Inc. (Canada) acquired a controlling shareholding in the former.[1]

In April, 2011 the Bank of China announced that it was interested in investing 60% of the funds required for the project while the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa also had expressed interest in providing funding. In June 2011 the project was expected to cost R3 billion to complete.[5] A revised configuration (cable branch to Namibia instead of Angola, additional branch to Saint Helena, and four instead of three fibre pairs), technological improvements and lower costs of technology are expected to reduce the projected capacity prices of the original design.[1] As of May 2014 the project had funding interest from numerous private and public financial institutions.[1]

As of October 2018, desktop surveying had begun.[3]

  1. ^ a b c d e f Thomas, Rosalind (2014), The South Atlantic Express Submarine Cable System, International Telecoms Week 2014, Chicago, IL, pp. 1–20{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference 20171027SHG was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b "SAEX AND ALCATEL SUBMARINE NETWORKS BEGIN SURVEY FOR A NEW SUBMARINE CABLE NETWORK LINKING SOUTHERN AFRICA AND ASIA TO THE AMERICAS". Retrieved 7 March 2019.
  4. ^ "SAEx website". Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  5. ^ "Bank of China to fund Africa-America submarine cable system". Telecoms.com. 15 April 2011. Retrieved 12 June 2011.