Orange announced partnership with PCCW Global and Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) Cable International for a new submarine cable to connect Europe to Asia via East Africa by 2021.

The development marks the arrival of the first Chinese private submarine cable in France.

PEACE is an open and neutral submarine cable system of 12,000 kilometres that will link France to Pakistan through a single landing point in the city of Marseille by 2021 using the Europe-Asia route, and the city of Mombasa in Kenya, via a short route towards the Indian Ocean.

PCCW is a Hong Kong-based information and communications technology company and the majority owner of telecommunications company HENGTONG Optic-electric (HKT). HKT is the investor in PEACE.

Orange will supply and operate the cable landing station in Marseille to link it to one of the city’s major data centers, and to make it a gateway to the European network; and even to the Americas thanks to access to the transatlantic network accessible from France.

Orange is a major investor in over 40 submarine cables and has acquired 500Gbps of capacity on the cable between Marseille and Kenya in order to support the growth of traffic in the Indian Ocean for several years. The objective is also to find alternative routes and to reduce its dependency on the EASSy cable which links Djibouti to South Africa, Orange said.

Jérôme Barré, chief executive officer, Orange Wholesale and International Networks, says, “For Orange, PEACE is a major investment as it will provide greater route diversity, improved connection security and guaranteed support for increased capacity across all regions in the Indian Ocean zone, particularly Réunion and Mayotte.”