Batelco recently selected SubCom to provide and install a fiber-optic submarine cable for the Al Khaleej Cable that will branch from SEA-ME-WE 6 to extend connectivity from Bahrain to other regional countries.

A press release said that the order from Batelco, a telecom company that is part of the Beyon Group, will significantly enhance the data exchange capabilities of the Kingdom of Bahrain. The 1,400-km-long Al Khaleej Cable that will connect Bahrain to the regional countries of Qatar, UAE and Oman, will substantially boost Batelco’s capabilities and strengthen regional connectivity.”

“We are delighted to partner with SubCom,” said Batelco Chief Global Business Officer Hani Askar. The new subsea cable will create a layer of network diversity and resilience for the heavily used routes connecting the Middle East towards Europe and Asia. Batelco joined the SEA-ME-WE 6 cable consortium in February 2023.

Work on the SEA-ME-WE 6 cable, a 21,700 km-long subsea telecommunications data cable system, began in early 2022 and is scheduled for completion in 2025. It is designed to offer one of the lowest latencies available between the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Western Europe, able to transfer more than 100 terabits per second. All cable and equipment related to both SEA-ME-WE 6 and Al Khaleej will be manufactured by SubCom at its campus in Newington, New Hampshire.

SubCom Project Manager Benoit Duguet said that the company “is already at work manufacturing the cable and equipment necessary to complete one of the more extensive cable projects ever commissioned.”

 Once completed, the cable and equipment for both the SEA-ME-WE 6 and Al Khaleej Cable systems will be deployed by SubCom’s Reliance Class cable ships. The SEA-ME-WE 6 subsea cable connectivity to Bahrain and Al Khaleej Cable is scheduled for completion by the second quarter of 2026.

 SubCom announced that it will manufacture and install a regional subsea cable that will branch from the SEA-ME-WE 6 cable system, and will significantly enhance the data exchange capabilities of the Kingdom of Bahrain.

A press release said that Al Khaleej will stretch 1,400 km, connecting Bahrain to regional countries that include Qatar, UAE and Oman. The customer is Batelco, part of the Beyon Group, a telecom solutions provider in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Al Khaleej, to be made at SubCom’s plant in Newington, New Hampshire, will substantially boost the capabilities and strengthen regional connectivity. It will branch from the SEA-MEWE 6 cable, a 21,700 km-long subsea telecom data cable system.

“Our congratulations to Batelco on the launch of the Al Khaleej regional cable system,” said Benoit Duguet, SubCom project manager. “Our organization is already at work manufacturing the cable and equipment necessary to complete one of the more extensive cable projects ever commissioned. We are grateful to the entire SEA-ME-WE 6 consortium for entrusting SubCom with this critical project, and to Batelco in particular, for giving us the opportunity to build a branch that will have such a positive impact on the region’s connectivity”

Batelco joined the SEA-ME-WE 6 consortium in February, which includes Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), Bharti Airtel Ltd. (India), Dhivehi Raajjeyge Gulhun Public Limited Company (Dhiraagu Maldives), China Unicom (China), Djibouti Telecom, Mobily (Saudi Arabia), Orange (France), Singtel (Singapore), Sri Lanka Telecom, Telecom Egypt, Telekom Malaysia, Telin (Indonesia) and Trans World Associates (Pakistan).

The SEA-ME-WE 6 cable system will have the capability of transferring more than 100 terabits per second. The new subsea cable will create a layer of network diversity and resilience for the heavily used routes connecting the Middle East towards Europe and Asia.

SubCom is a leader in high fiber count cables, The SEA-ME-WE 6 subsea cable connectivity to Bahrain and Al Khaleej Cable are expected to be completed by Q2 2026.

7/3/2022 - SubCom’s cable installation vessel, the CS Durable, landed the IRIS Subsea Telecoms Cable System (IRIS) at Thorlakshofn beach in Iceland on May 23.

Per a report at SubCom’s website, the landing signifies the commencement of the marine installation of the IRIS cable system that Farice has been developing since 2019. During the summer months, SubCom’s CS Durable will lay the cable south from Iceland to Galway, Ireland, with final splice and completion of marine work planned for mid-August 2022.

Marine survey of the entire route was done by Farice in 2020 and 2021. SubCom completed the final design, preparation work, and manufacturing of the system during 2021-2022. The cable installation progressed at some 20-200 km per day with burial or surface lay from Iceland to Ireland. The target burial depth of the cable was 1.5 m beneath the seabed in water depth of up to 1,500 m.

Designed as a six-fiber pair trunk with a total system capacity of 108 Tbps (each fiber pair delivers 18Tbs), IRIS will be approximately 1,700 km in length and connect southwest of Iceland to Ballyloughane Strand in Galway, Ireland. The cable was made at SubCom’s plant in Newington, New Hampshire.

The IRIS system will be ready for service in the beginning of 2023. It will be the third submarine fiber optic cable system connecting Iceland with Europe, providing further redundancy in telecom connection, with low latency connections around 10.5 ms, between Reykjavík and Dublin.

Farice, a connectivity provider owned by the Icelandic Government, owns and operates two submarine cable systems that connect Iceland to Europe: FARICE-1 and DANICE. The newest cable system will improve the diversity of adequate connections to support the continued growth of Iceland’s modern community and international business environment.

June 3, 2021 – Subsea cable supplier SubCom will provide two next-gen subsea cables to support data capacity for Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio), a mobile digital service provider in India.

A press release said that the two systems, each of which will provide more than 200 Tbits of capacity, will require cable to span some 16,000 km. They will employ open system technology and the latest wavelength switched RoADM/branching units ensures rapid upgrade deployment and the ultimate flexibility to add/drop waves across multiple locations.

The first system, the India-Asia-Xpress (IAX) system, will connect Mumbai and Chennai in India eastbound to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The second system, the India-Europe-Xpress (IEX) system, will connect India westbound to Italy, landing in Savona, and additional landings in the Middle East and North Africa.

Both systems will be connected to the Reliance Jio Global Fiber Network beyond Asia-Pacific and Europe, connecting to both the east and west coast of the U.S. IAX is expected to be ready for service mid-2023, while IEX will be ready for service in early 2024.
“To meet the demands of streaming video, remote workforce, 5G, IoT, and beyond, Jio is taking a leadership role in the construction of the first of its kind, India-centric IAX and IEX subsea systems,” said Reliance Jio President Mathew Oommen.