The West Africa Cable System (WACS) is a

submarine communications cable A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried tel ...

linking

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

with the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

along the west coast of Africa that was constructed by

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel–Lucent S.A. () was a French–American global telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a su ...

. The cable consists of four fibre pairs and is 14,530 km in length, linking from

Yzerfontein Yzerfontein, or Ysterfontein, is a small harbour town with about 1200 inhabitants on the west coast of South Africa about 90 km north of Cape Town. The name in Afrikaans means "Iron Fountain".The town started out when the farm 'Yzerfontein' ...

in the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

of South Africa to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in the

. It has 14 landing points, 12 along the western coast of Africa (including Cape Verde and Canary Islands) and 2 in Europe (Portugal and England) completed on land by a cable termination station in London. The total cost for the cable system is $650 million. WACS was originally known as the Africa West Coast Cable (AWCC) and was planned to branch to South America but this was dropped and the system eventually became the West African Cable System.

Landing points

The cable has landed in the following countries and locations: #

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

Swakopmund Swakopmund (german: Mouth of the Swakop) is a city on the coast of western Namibia, west of the Namibian capital Windhoek via the B2 main road. It is the capital of the Erongo administrative district. The town has 44,725 inhabitants and covers ...

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

, Sangano near

Luanda Luanda () is the capital and largest city in Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Angola's administrative centre, its chief seaport ...

Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

Muanda Moanda or Muanda is a town and territory lying on the Atlantic Ocean coast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the mouth of the Congo River., United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency It is situated in Kongo Central Province, ...

Republic of Congo The Republic of the Congo (french: République du Congo, ln, Republíki ya Kongó), also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply either Congo or the Congo, is a country located in the western coast of Central Africa to the w ...

, Matombi near

Pointe Noire Pointe-Noire (; kg, Njinji, french: Ndjindji with the letter d following French spelling standards) is the second largest city in the Republic of the Congo, following the capital of Brazzaville, and an autonomous department since 2004. Before ...

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

, Limbe, near

Douala Douala is the largest city in Cameroon and its economic capital. It is also the capital of Cameroon's Littoral Region (Cameroon), Littoral Region. Home to Central Africa's largest port and its major international airport, Douala International Ai ...

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

Lekki Lekki is a city in Lagos State, Nigeria. It is located to the south-east of Lagos, Lagos city. Lekki is a naturally formed peninsula, adjoining to its west Victoria Island (Lagos), Victoria Island and Ikoyi districts of Lagos, with the Atlantic O ...

, near

Lagos Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the List of cities in Africa by population, second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national ca ...

Togo Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...

, Afidenyigba near

Lomé Lomé is the capital and largest city of Togo. It has an urban population of 837,437

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

Nungua Nungua is a town in Krowor Municipal District in the Greater Accra Region of southeastern Ghana near the coast.Accra Accra (; tw, Nkran; dag, Ankara; gaa, Ga or ''Gaga'') is the capital and largest city of Ghana, located on the southern coast at the Gulf of Guinea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2021 census, the Accra Metropolitan District, , ...

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

Abidjan Abidjan ( , ; N'Ko script, N’ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the economic capital of the Ivory Coast. As of the Demographics of Ivory Coast, 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of overall population of the country, ...

Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

, Palmarejo near

Praia Praia (, Portuguese language, Portuguese for "beach") is the capital and largest city of Cape Verde.

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

Telde Telde is a town and a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in the eastern part of the island of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, overseas (Atlantic) insular Spain. It is the second most populous municipality on the island, with a population of (201 ...

(el Goro) near

Las Palmas Las Palmas (, ; ), officially Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, is a Spain, Spanish city and capital of Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital (jointly with Santa Cruz de Tenerife), the most populous city in th ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

Sesimbra Sesimbra () is a municipality of Portugal, in the Setúbal District, lying at the foothills of the ''Serra da Arrábida'', a mountain range between Setúbal and Sesimbra. Due to its particular position at the Setúbal Bay, near the mouth of the Sa ...

near Seixal #

, Brean near Highbridge (fiber link is extended by underground cable to

) The landings in Namibia, the DRC, the Republic of Congo and Togo will provide the first direct connections for these countries to the global submarine cable network. While all earlier submarine cables were terminated at South Africa's international submarine gateways in

Melkbosstrand Melkbosstrand (Afrikaans for " Milkbush beach") is a coastal town located on the South West Coast of South Africa, 30 km north of Cape Town. It forms part of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality, the municipality governing Cape ...

Mtunzini Mtunzini ( Zulu: ''eMthunzini'', from ''umthunzi'' meaning "a place in the shade") is a small coastal town that is situated almost exactly halfway along KwaZulu-Natal's coastline in South Africa approximately 140 km north of Durban. In 2011, ...

the WACS cable has been landed at

in order to reduce risk of complete isolation from the rest of the world in the case of damages by earthquakes or a large ship dragging its anchor.

Design capacity

The planned design capacity of WACS was 3.84 Tbit/s when the project agreement was signed in 2008. When delivered in 2012 the initial design capacity was 5.12Tbit/s. An upgrade delivered by Huawei Marine in December 2015 using WDM Soft Decision FEC and bit interleaved coded modulation advanced decoders permitting the design capacity to be increased to 14.5Tbit/s.

Innovations

Instead of powering the 236 undersea

optical amplifier An optical amplifier is a device that amplifies an optical signal directly, without the need to first convert it to an electrical signal. An optical amplifier may be thought of as a laser without an optical cavity, or one in which feedback fr ...

s and the 12 Submarine branching units along the cable by a single conductor which would require the voltage to be well over 12,000 to 14,000 V in the order of some 24,000 V DC, the system is supplied by two independent rings from Europe to West Africa and West Africa to South Africa, thus reducing the power requirements to around 12,000 V DC. Branching units are designed to keep the main trunk intact in case of failure. Repairing a branch will not affect the traffic on the main cable. Landing stations support wavelength pass through which means a wavelength coming into a landing station does not just stop there but carries on. This feature allows future upgrade to be carried out without the necessity to have to upgrade each landing point.

Topology

One of the four fibre pairs is a direct route from South Africa to Europe, a so-called ''express lane''. The second and third fibre pairs are designed as a ''semi-express lane'', one with two hops, from South Africa to West Africa and West Africa to Europe and the other with three stops. The fourth fibre pair is an ''omnibus fibre'' that stops off at all landing ports en route. *Fibre Pair one known as the Express lane (South Africa and Portugal) *Fibre Pair two (South Africa to Nigeria to Portugal) *Fibre Pair three (South Africa to Angola to DRC to Ivory Coast to Portugal) *Fibre Pair four (All WACS Landing Stations)

Construction and ownership

The following South African companies were announced as participants in the construction and maintenance of the cable system.

MTN Group MTN Group Limited, formerly M-Cell, is a South African multinational mobile telecommunications company, operating in many African and Asian countries. Its head office is in Johannesburg. , MTN recorded 280 million subscribers, making it the ...

has invested $90 million in the cable making it the largest investor, and in return will receive 11% of the initial capacity of the cable. *

: a South African-based regional mobile operator *

Neotel Neotel, previously SNO Telecommunications, is the second national operator (SNO) for fixed line telecommunication services in South Africa. It was unveiled on 31 August 2006 in Kyalami in northern Johannesburg. Neotel is South Africa's first dir ...

: South Africa's second

fixed line A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

operator - Liquid Telecom bought Neotel in 2018/19 *

Telkom South Africa Telkom SA SOC Limited is a South African wireline and wireless telecommunications provider, operating in more than 38 countries across the African continent. Telkom is majority state-owned (55.3%) with the South African government owning 40.5% ...

: South Africa's incumbent fixed line operator *

Vodacom Vodacom Group Limited is a South-Western African mobile communications company, providing voice, messaging, data and converged services to over 55 million customers. From its roots in South Africa, Vodacom has grown its operations to include n ...

: a South African-based regional mobile operator *

Gateway Communications Gateway Communications, also known as Gateway Carrier Services was a telecommunication business division . It was acquired by PCCW Global, a division of HKT Limited in 2012. HKT Limited itself was a subsidiary of PCCW. Gateway Global Communicatio ...

: a pan-African wholesale connectivity and telecommunications provider *

Broadband Infraco In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

: a South African state-owned telecom infrastructure company On 8 April 2009, the following companies signed the WACS Construction and Maintenance Agreement and formed the final consortium: The WACS consortium includes 12 companies: #

Togo Telecom Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in Western Africa, West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to Ghana–Togo border, the west, Benin to Benin–Togo border, the east and Burkina Faso to Burkina ...

Telkom (South Africa) Telkom SA SOC Limited is a South African wireline and wireless telecommunications provider, operating in more than 38 countries across the African continent. Telkom is majority state-owned (55.3%) with the South African government owning 40.5% ...

Telecom Namibia Telecom Namibia Limited, commonly known as Telecom Namibia, is a telecommunications service provider operating in Namibia. It is the national telecommunications operator, established in August 1992 and wholly owned by the Government of Namibia. ...

Tata Communications Tata Communications Limited (previously known as Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited) is an Indian telecommunications company. It was previously a government- owned-telecommunications service provider and under the ownership of Department of Telec ...

Portugal Telecom Altice Portugal (formerly known as Portugal Telecom or PT) is the largest telecommunications service provider in Portugal. Since June 2, 2015, the company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Altice Europe, a multinational cable and telecommuni ...

Cabo Verde Telecom Cabo is Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for cape. It may refer to: * Cabo San Lucas, a resort city in Baja California Sur, Mexico * Cabó, a municipality in Alt Urgell, Lleida, Catalonia, Spain Other places * Cabo Blanco, Costa Rica * Cabo Co ...

# Office Congolais des Postes et Telecommunications #

# Congo telecom #

Cable & Wireless Worldwide Cable & Wireless Worldwide PLC (informally Cable & Wireless) was a British multinational telecommunications services company headquartered in Bracknell, United Kingdom. It was formed in 2010 by the split of Cable & Wireless plc into two com ...

Angola Cables Angola Cables is an Angolan multinational telecommunications operator of fiber-optic telecommunication cables. The company was formed in 2009 and is owned by the major national telecommunication companies, namely Angola Telecom with 51% of the c ...

The supply contract was signed the same day between the consortium members and

Submarine Networks. Subsea cable laying operations began 15 July 2010 with the departure of Île de Bréhat vessel from Alcatel-Lucent's submarine cable's factory of

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. Th ...

loaded with almost 6000 km of submarine cables. The cable was simultaneously laid by Alcatel-Lucent's

cable ship A cable layer or cable ship is a deep-sea vessel designed and used to lay underwater cables for telecommunications, electric power transmission, military, or other purposes. Cable ships are distinguished by large cable sheaves for guiding cabl ...

s Île de Bréhat and her

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

Île de Sein. Subsea cable laying operations were officially finished 19 April 2011 with the landing of the cable on a Yzerfontein's beach in South Africa. The cable became operational on 11 May 2012 by the launching of the cable in South Africa The 4-fibre pair submarine cable system was constructed at an approximate total project cost of US$650 million.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wacs (Cable System) Submarine communications cables in the North Atlantic Ocean Submarine communications cables in the South Atlantic Ocean Submarine communications cables in the Atlantic Ocean 2012 establishments in Africa 2012 establishments in Europe