Google plans Equiano submarine cable link from Portugal to South Africa
Google has announced plans to build Equiano, a submarine cable system that will run between Lisbon, Portugal, and Cape Town, South Africa. Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks will build the submarine network, a process that Google expects to complete in 2021.
The submarine cable’s design will feature nine branching units from which spurs can be added. According to a map Google provided (see below), there appears to be plans to leverage one of these branches to land a cable spur in Lagos, Nigeria. The company did not provide Equiano’s design capacity but noted that it will leverage space-division multiplexing (SDM) to increase capacity. Google is using SDM on its Dunant submarine cable system as well (see “Google, SubCom, to deploy space-division multiplexing on Dunant submarine cable”). Google also asserts that Equiano will be the first undersea network to use optical switching at the fiber-pair level, versus the more traditional wavelength-level switching. The company says that switching at the fiber-pair level will significantly simplify capacity allocation.
Equiano, named after Olaudah Equiano, a Nigerian-born writer and abolitionist, is the third submarine network that Google has launched on its own (Dunant and Curie are the others) and the 14th submarine cable system in which it has invested overall. The company says it has invested $47 billion on its global network over the last three years.
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Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher, Lightwave
Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.
Stephen has moderated panels at numerous events, including the Optica Executive Forum, ECOC, and SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. He also is program director for the Lightwave Innovation Reviews and the Diamond Technology Reviews.
He has written numerous articles in all aspects of optical communications and fiber-optic networks, including fiber to the home (FTTH), PON, optical components, DWDM, fiber cables, packet optical transport, optical transceivers, lasers, fiber optic testing, and more.
You can connect with Stephen on LinkedIn as well as Twitter.