East Africa’s largest Submarine cable lands in Djibouti

Djibouti Telecom, Telekom Kenya and Somtel Somalia have partnered to set up a submarine cable system to link the East African coastline.

The cable which today landed in Djibouti will link Djibouti, Mogadishu, Mombasa and Bosaso towns in the region, and will deliver a capacity of up to 30 terabits per second.

The 5,400-kilometer cable system dubbed the Djibouti Africa Regional Express-1 (DARE1) will link Djibouti, Mogadishu, Mombasa and Bosaso, and will deliver a capacity of up to 30 terabits per second.

However, although the branch units point towards Somaliland coastal town of Berbera, it is not expected to land in Somaliland. It is not clear why the country has not been part of the giant telecommunication companies that over the last couple of years have been negotiating, configuring and designing the cables routes.

The cable leaves Djibouti through Bosaso, a small town in the North-Eastern State of Puntland through Mogadishu and Mombasa.

Bosaso is already connected to another international cable which gives redundancy and options for managing traffic.

Somalia’s capital Mogadishu also has another cable that has been rejected to land in Berbera in 2011 which also gives the Somali capital an abundant capacity and diversity for its internet connectivity.

This vessel will be moving a couple of nautical-miles a day and will reach Mombasa in March this year.

The cable is expected to be ready for service in May 2020.

The Djibouti Africa Regional Express cable is configured as a three fibre pair trunk, with each fibre pair delivering a cross-sectional capacity of 150 channels at 100 Gbps.

Djibouti Africa Regional Express will include diversified Points of Presence (PoP) with options for future connectivity via SubCom’s industry-leading optical reconfigurable multiplexing product line.

The cable will also connect to the global network via multiple cable systems in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

The initiative will also open room for interconnection between telecommunication players in the Somali territories and the larger East Africa.