One thing that can always be counted on in the subsea world is that any SEA-ME-WE cable plans will take some time to work out politically. But for SEA-ME-WE 6 that stage is now complete, as SubCom said over the weekend that its contract is now in force. The company has begun the supply and installation of the cable system.
The new cable system will do what the others of same name and lower number have done: connect western Europe with Southeast Asia via the Middle East. The endpoints will be Marseille and Singapore, with a terrestrial run across Egypt connecting its two subsea segments. In all it will have landings and branches touching 11 countries.
Members of the consortium include BSCCL, Bharti Airtel, Dhiraagu, Djibouti Telecom, Mobily, Orange, Singtel, Sri Lanka Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Telin, TM, and TWA. Not on that list are a few big players, such as the Chinese operators and any hyperscalers of course. Seems like we don’t see too many cables not touched by the hyperscalers these days, but of course they are probably somewhere on the fringes even here.
SEA-ME-WE 6 will feature 24 fiber pairs using SL17-SDM cable, which SubCom will manufacture at its campus up in New Hampshire. It is designed to maintain operations with single-end feed power, increasing reliability. If all goes well the system is expected to be ready for service in Q1 2025, roughly three years from now.
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