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Orange has announced that the PEACE (Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe) cable system has landed in Marseille in the south of France, a major milestone ahead of the cable’s commercial launch in 2022
The PEACE cable system was first announced back in 2018, with the system notable for being the first Chinese neutral submarine cable in France.
The cable itself is the joint creation of PEACE Cable International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Hengtong Optic-Electric, as well as PCCW Global, and Orange.
The system will span around 12,000km and links France to Pakistan via the Europe–Asia route, as well as travelling down the east coast of Africa, with landing stations in Egypt, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya and the Seychelles.
In Phase two of the cable’s deployment, a southern extension will also be added connecting the system to South Africa.
According to Orange, PEACE will provide “the most direct and high-capacity route from Asia and East Africa to Europe”.
Now, Orange has announced that the system has been successfully landed in Marseille, with the next step of the project being to link the system to Interxion’s MRS2 data centre situated within the city.
For Orange, who already have commercial interests in over 40 submarine cables around the world, suggest that the cable will give them the additional capacity they need to support the growth of data traffic in East Africa, particularly with regard to the French overseas departments of Réunion and Mayotte.
“We are glad to have successfully completed this operation with our affiliate Orange Marine today who managed the shore-end landing. For Orange, having capacity on PEACE will provide greater route diversity, improved connection security and guaranteed support for increased capacity across all regions in the Indian Ocean zone, particularly La Réunion and Mayotte, especially reducing its dependency on the EASSy cable which links Djibouti to South Africa” explained Jean-Luc Vuillemin, Executive Vice President of International Networks at Orange.
The cable is expected to be launched commercially in Q1 2022.
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