In a press release, France Telecom has announced that ACE (Africa Coast to Europe) submarine cable system, which was intially planned to stretch from France to Gabon, will now be extended to South Africa connecting all countries along the West coast of Africa, from Morocco to South Africa. This new cable will provide broadband interconnection to the global telecommunications network to more than twenty-five countries in Africa and Western Europe.
The ACE consortium currently comprises seventeen telecommunications operators. Three operators, Mauritano-Tunisienne des Télécommunications, Camtel and Companhia Santomense de Telecomunicações recently joined the original fourteen operators (Benin Telecoms SA, Côte d’Ivoire Telecom, France Télécom SA, Gamtel, Maroc Telecom, Orange Bissau, Orange Cameroun, Orange Guinée, Orange Mali, Orange Niger, Orange Spain, Portugal Telecom, Sonatel and Togo Telecom), which signed the Memorandum of Understanding approved in Dakar on November 27th, 2008.
Three operators, Mauritano-Tunisienne des Telecommunications, Camtel and Companhia Santomense de Telecomunicacoes recently joined the original fourteen operators, which signed the memorandum of understanding in Dakar in November 2008. The ACE submarine cable system, which will be more than 14,000 km long, will be switched on in 2011 and offer a minimum capacity of 1.92Tbps.
