WACS repaired, Mauritius Telecom to build new subsea cable

After enduring weeks of disruptions, the West Africa Cable System (WACS) subsea cable has been repaired.

WACS and three other lines – the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and South Atlantic-3 (Sat-3) – were disrupted in March 2024, when a suspected subsea seismic event occurred off the coast of Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire on the west coast of Africa, impacting Africa's Internet services.

Several Internet service providers (ISPs) confirmed disruptions to the international submarine cables.

To ease the impact, operators rerouted traffic via alternative cables like Google's Equiano system and the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS) as temporary solutions to the crisis.

According to benjamindada.com, the repairs on WACS mean traffic will resume flowing across the system via normal routes.

Moreover, Sat-3 was reportedly repaired in April 2024, contributing to easing the disruptions,.

Mauritius Telecom to build new subsea cable

In response to those network disruptions, Mauritius Telecom is taking proactive steps to enhance connectivity and redundancy in the region by partnering with Orange and Reliance Jio to build a new subsea cable connecting Africa, Indian Ocean islands and Asia.

Mauritius Telecom CEO Kapil Reesaul said the new cable will be called T4 and possesses 1,000 times more capacity compared to the South Africa Far East (SAFE) cable it will replace, which is coming to the end of its life in 2027.

The new T4 subsea cable will connect Africa to Indian Ocean islands and Asia. (Source: freepik)

"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," Reesaul told Bloomberg.

He added that the T4 cable will stretch across a similar route to the 13,500-kilometers-long SAFE, which connects South Africa to Madagascar, Reunion, Mauritius, India, and Singapore.

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Reesaul said that there are other operators that could join the consortium including Telkom, Telekom Malaysia, Cable & Wireless of Seychelles and China Telecom Corp.

*Top image is of the WACS subsea network route. (Source: WACS.)

— Matshepo Sehloho, Associate Editor, Connecting Africa