The Mauritius and Rodrigues Submarine Cable System (MARS) is set to vastly improve connectivity for the island of Rodrigues and in partnership with Huawei Marine Networks, the new 700km system will offer a bandwidth design capacity of 16Tbit/s.
Commenting on the news, Frederick Chui, senior vice president of global data sales, PCCW Global, said: “This project is very exciting for us because we are using our experience gained in designing, building, and maintaining submarine cables around the world to assist another service provider, in this case Mauritius Telecom, to commission their own fully-maintained cable investment. This completely eliminates any risk in the development, maintenance and operation of what might otherwise have been a technically daunting project.”
In addition to the improved bandwidth and connectivity, the residents of Rodrigues will have access to a rich portfolio of digital applications, online services and content via PCCW Global’s international network.
“We are proud to collaborate with Mauritius Telecom and PCCW Global to revolutionize the broadband infrastructure of Rodrigues by providing a step-change in high speed Internet connectivity and facilitate the growth of digital communications,” added Mike Constable, chief executive of Huawei Marine. “This is the 12th submarine cable system we have deployed in the African region, which reinforces the confidence in our technology and robust network solutions to further enable the transformation of the region’s digital economy.”
Rodrigues has a population of approximately 40,000 people and is the second largest island in the Republic of Mauritius. The MARS cable is due for service in 2019 and PCCW Global will manage the operations of the cable.
Last month, PCCW Global announced a partnership with Youtap to expand distribution of the contactless payments provider’s services as a complement to HKT’s Tap & Go solution. Under the agreement PCCW Global will be able to provide new and existing clients with payment processing and merchant acquisition services to support customers transacting in a number of different ways.
