Mauritius’s top telecommunications company is in talks with operators including Reliance Jio Infocomm and Orange for a new undersea cable linking Africa, Indian Ocean islands and Asia, improving redundancy in region hit by breakdowns.

The new line named T4 will replace the South Africa-Far East (Safe) cable that’s coming to end of life in 2027, a quarter of a century after commissioning. T4 will have a thousand times more capacity than the Safe, according to Kapil Reesaul, CEO of the Port Louis-based Mauritius Telecom.

“With so many cable breakdowns we are having, we want to secure the Far East with a cable that will run from Mauritius to India and Singapore,” he said in an interview on Monday.

The urgent need for additional cable infrastructure was highlighted by a disruption on Friday that impacted the Indian Ocean island nation. The hitch, which was resolved after five hours, was the latest problem after four cables were damaged near the Ivory Coast last month and three lines off the coast of Yemen that have remained offline since late February.

The new undersea cable will follow “more or less” the same path as the 13 500km-long Safe that runs from South Africa, by Madagascar, La Reunion, Mauritius, to India and Singapore.

Other operators that could join the consortium include South Africa’s Telkom, Telekom Malaysia, Cable & Wireless of Seychelles, and “maybe” China Telecom, he said.

Costs

The cost of such a project would be in the range of US$150-million (R2.8-billion) to $200-million (R3.8-billion) and works may take at least two years, he said. Taking the lead on the T4 reflects Mauritius Telecom’s ambition to become a regional operator, according to Reesaul. — Kamlesh Bhuckory, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP