Marseille is a veritable hub of the global Internet. Many submarine cables pass through the Marseille city, which enjoys a real attractiveness in this area.
In Marseille, it’s not just OM, cicadas, the Calanques or the Corniche: there are also submarine cables. Year after year, the one that was the European Capital of Culture in 2013 is becoming a real global stronghold of internet traffic. 16 submarine cables (which serve the terrestrial and mobile networks) arrive and depart from the city today. To the delight of the telecoms and digital giants of our planet.
Marseille will become the 5e global hub
On November 8, the 2Africa submarine cable arrived in Marseille. Touted as the most complete in the world and built by the French company Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), the cable is carried by the 2Africa consortium made up, excuse me, of Meta (group that owns Facebook), Orange, China Mobile International, MTN GlobalConnect, Vodafone, STC, Telecom Egypt and WIOCC.
2Africa is quite simply the longest submarine cable in existence, at 45,000 kilometres. Once it is rolled out definitively (it is planned for 2023), it will connect 33 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe, so that 3 billion people can benefit from faster and affordable Internet.
Like PEACE (Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe), 12,000 km long and which is an ideal relay to China, the landing of 2Africa (a cable which will make it possible to deploy up to 16 pairs of fiber with a nominal capacity of 180 terabits per second) was made in Marseille. The Marseille city therefore hosted a 6e submarine cable to carry colossal flows of data. This will take her from 7e at 5e world leader in data traffic, joining the giants Miami and Singapore. But what explains why the city is so attractive?
A safe haven
Marseille has an advantage that makes the difference: its strategic location. Its position on the map allows it to serve different regions of the world, both the Maghreb and the rest of Africa (via the Strait of Gibraltar), without forgetting the Middle East and India, this time transiting through the Suez Canal. 20% of Marseille traffic also goes to India, Bombay being only 95 milliseconds from the city.
In the other direction, Marseille is connected to strategic European land hubs, such as Paris and Frankfurt. The city thus competes very strongly with Barcelona, Lisbon and Genoa. It is also a host land for data centers, an undeniable advantage, since the players who invest in submarine cables want them to be able to be directly connected to data centers.
Marseille has in any case not finished with the submarine cables. Google’s Blue and Raman cables will pass through Marseille, and the city was chosen by the SEA-ME-WE 6 consortium (Southeast Asia, Middle East and Western Europe), of which Orange is a member , to connect France to Singapore. The cable will pass through Egypt via an “express” submarine cable which will have a total capacity of 125 Tbits/s, for 10 pairs of optical fibre.
Sources: Clubic, The echoes
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