A new transatlantic submarine cable connecting France to the United States and Great Britain, in partnership with the American groups Facebook and British Vodafone, will soon arrive on a beach near Bordeaux (South West of France), French telecommunications operator Orange announced Monday.
Read also: The new geopolitics of submarine cables
Called "
AMITIE
", this network of fiber optic cables measures a total of 6,800 km long and its commissioning is scheduled for early 2022. The construction of this gigantic project, estimated at 250 million euros, has been entrusted to the French specialist. Alcatel Submarine Networks, a subsidiary of Finland's Nokia.
Connection between Massachusetts, Le Porge and Bude
The arrival on the French coasts, postponed due to bad weather conditions, will be effective in the "
coming days
", specifies Orange.
It will provide a connection between the State of Massachusetts (United States), Le Porge (France, near Bordeaux) and Bude (England).
“
In the context of the explosion in international traffic, the arrival of these new generations of more efficient submarine cables, and given the strategic issues and national sovereignty linked to submarine cables, Orange must continue ( ...) to develop its infrastructures to connect France to other continents
”, estimates Jean-Luc Vuillemin, director of international networks at Orange.
Project initiated by Facebook
Orange will own the cable present in French territorial waters.
Ditto for Vodafone on the English part.
This project launched by Facebook is similar to that carried out with the American giant Google, with the co-creation of the transatlantic submarine cable called "
Dunant
", the arrival section of which was installed in Vendée (West) in March 2020.
The laying and operation of submarine cables, through which almost all of the world's internet traffic passes, have long been the prerogative of large telecom operators united in consortia.
But the giants of the Internet - Google, Facebook, Microsoft - are becoming the new builders, in particular because of the explosion in the flow of data transiting between Europe and the United States.
Facebook will also co-build, with a consortium of telecoms companies, a 37,000 km submarine cable, called “
2Africa
”, all around Africa in order to improve internet access in this continent and in the Middle East. -East.
This cable, one of the longest in the world, will connect Western Europe to the Middle East and 16 African countries, crossing the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the African coast of the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope, to go up the Atlantic Ocean to Great Britain.
The commissioning of this one is scheduled for 2023 or 2024.
