Jio, Orange in talks with Mauritius Telecom for Africa-Asia undersea cable

Mauritius’ top telecommunications company is in talks with operators including Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. and Orange SA for a new undersea cable linking Africa, Indian Ocean islands and Asia, improving redundancy in region hit by breakdowns.

The new line named T4 will replace the South Africa Far East cable that’s coming to end of life in 2027, a quarter of a century after commissioning. T4 will have 1,000 times more capacity than the SAFE, according to Kapil Reesaul, chief executive officer of the Port Louis-based Mauritius Telecom Ltd.

“With so many cable breakdowns we are having, we want to secure the far east with a cable that will run from Mauritius to India and Singapore,” he said in an interview on Monday.

The urgent need for additional cable infrastructure was highlighted by a disruption on Friday that impacted the Indian Ocean island nation. The hitch, which was resolved after five hours, was the latest problem after four cables were damaged near the Ivory Coast last month and three lines off the coast of Yemen that have remained offline since late February.

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The new undersea cable will follow “more or less” the same path as the 13,500 kilometer (8,389 mile) long SAFE that runs from South Africa, by Madagascar, La Reunion, Mauritius, to India and Singapore. Last year, Mauritius Telecom invested $60 million on the T3 cable to South Africa. In addition, the island nation is connected on the northern route by LION/LION2-EASSy-EIG cable.

“If tomorrow, India becomes a hub and Singapore becomes a bigger hub, we will have the kind of redundancy toward the far east,” Reesaul said.

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Other operators that could join the consortium include Telkom SA, Telekom Malaysia Bhd, Cable & Wireless Ltd. of Seychelles, and “maybe” China Telecom Corp., he said.

The cost of such a project would be in the range of $150 million to $200 million and works may take at least two years, he said. Taking the lead on the T4 reflects Mauritius Telecom’s ambition to become a regional operator, according to Reesaul. Bloomberg