China Mobile International (CMI) announced on Tuesday that the PEACE subsea cable running from Singapore to France is now fully activated end to end, adding more open and flexible connectivity between Southeast Asia and Europe.
The PEACE cable spans 21,500 km between Tuas, Singapore and Marseille, France, with landing points along the way in Pakistan, Kenya, Somalia, Tunisia, Maldives, Seychelles, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Malta and Cyprus. The system is designed with a capacity of 16 Tbps per fibre pair, with a maximum design capacity of 192 Tbps.
The cable has been in the works since 2018 and the main segments connecting Pakistan, Kenya, Egypt and France went live at the end of 2022. The final segment connecting Singapore was completed last month. CMI said on Tuesday that the entire route from Singapore to France went live on August 30.
The PEACE cable is privately owned by Peace Cable International Network Co Limited, a subsidiary of China-based Hengtong Group. However, the branching units are owned by telco partners – Zain owns the branch connecting Jeddah and Marseille, while Ooredoo Tunisia owns the Tunisian branch, Cyta owns the branch to Cyprus, and GO owns the branch to Malta.
CMI is one of 12 partners helping to build the PEACE cable, along with China Telecom, China Unicom, Ooredoo, PCCW Global, Telecom Egypt, Telin, Orange, Telkom, Zain Omantel International, Digital Realty and Cybernet. CMI signed a strategic alliance with Peace Cable International in September 2023, which focused on bolstering the capacity of CMI’s subsea cable network in Africa.
CMI said that the completion and activation of the PEACE cable gives it three routes between Asia and Europe, along with Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) and SEA-ME-WE-5. The operator also said the routes will fortify its self-built fibre optic rings in Singapore, Malaysia and Europe that connect data centres across those regions for CMI’s PoP-to-PoP solutions.
