Huawei Marine Networks has completed a 6,000 km transatlantic fibre optic subsea cable linking Brazil to Cameroon.

The firm said the South Atlantic Inter Link (SAIL) consortium announced that for the first time, two continents -Africa and South America – in the Southern Hemisphere were fully connected to their respective landing station; Kribi in Cameroon and Fortaleza in Brazil.

The SAIL cable system has been designed to be a fast and direct path, utilizing 100G transmission technology, with a design capacity of 32 Tbps through a 4 fiber pair configuration since its inception in 2016.

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The project is a joint investment by China Unicom (with its wholly-owned subsidiary, China Unicom do Brasil Telecomunicacoes Ltda) and CAMTEL – a national telecommunications and ISP in Cameroon.

“With the rapid development of global infrastructure and a massive surge in worldwide internet traffic, Africa and Latin America are becoming strategic emerging markets of the global telecommunications industry,” said Huawei.

“The introduction of SAIL meets the traffic demands from the emerging markets, and also opens a new routing through diverse paths between Africa and North America, Europe and South America. Through the launch of SAIL, countries in these regions, especially the Southern Hemisphere countries will be more connected and in a better position to drive the development of the region’s digital economy,” it added.

As an important infrastructure located in the Southern Hemisphere, supported by other submarine cables directed to Eurasia, the SAIL cable will positively impact the current communications market in Global South. This cable will allow immediate links of BRICS with connections to Brazil, South Africa in Southern Hemisphere, and connections to China, Russia and India in Eurasia. This will reinforce increasing communication demand and drive rapid expansion of global emerging markets in these areas.