SEA-ME-WE 4

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SEA-ME-WE-4
Cable type Fiber optic cable
operator 16
Landing points Landing points
overall length 18,800 km
technology Wavelength division multiplexing
active since December 2007

SEA-ME-WE 4 or South-East Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 4 is a submarine cable that connects Europe and Asia . It was put into operation in December 2007. The cable is around 18,800 kilometers long.

The implementation takes place predominantly as a submarine cable system with a short land route in Egypt . Wavelength division multiplexing is used to increase capacity and improve signal quality .

SEA-ME-WE 4 is the fourth of a family of several similarly named large submarine cables to connect Europe with Asia. Other cables are SEA-ME-WE 3 and SEA-ME-WE 5 .

history

SEA-ME-WE 4 was implemented by a consortium of 16 telecommunications companies. The cable system belongs to the SEA-ME-WE series of submarine cables. The first of these cables - SEA-ME-WE 1 - was completed in 1986 as a coaxial cable for the transmission of telephone signals between Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. At the time of its completion, it was the longest telephone cable in the world at 13,585 km and the first such cable to be laid in the Indian Ocean . The maximum bandwidth of this cable was estimated at 25 MHz . Later on, SEA-ME-WE 1 no longer met the increased requirements, which led to follow-up projects. In 1994, SEA-ME-WE 2 was completed as a fiber optic system with a length of 18,751 kilometers. The maximum data transfer rate reached 560 Mbps, which corresponds to about 15 cables of the type SEA-ME-WE 1. In 1999 SEA-ME-WE 3 went into operation with a capacity of 2.5 Gbps. In 2002 this was increased to 10 Gbps.

SEA-ME-WE 4 was laid by the cable laying vessel Niwa in the operations of Emirates Telecommunications and Marine Services . In the first phase, which lasted 101 days, 3500 km of cables were laid at depths of up to 4000 meters from France to the Arabian Sea . The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami delayed the start of construction on Phase 2, which was directed by Fujitsu and Alcatel Submarine Networks .

On December 13, 2005, Fujitsu announced that the cable had been completed. At the time of its completion, the cable had a maximum data transfer rate of 1.28 Tbps. In 2015 the SEA-ME-WE 4 was upgraded to a capacity of 4.6 Tbps.

topography

Location and landing points of the SEA-ME-WE-4 submarine cable

The cable has 17 landing points in 15 countries on two continents and is divided into 4 segments:

Segments

  1. Tuas - Mumbai
  2. Mumbai - Suez
  3. Suez - Cairo
  4. Cairo - Marseille

Landing points

  1. Marseille , France
  2. Annaba , Algeria
  3. Bizerte , Tunisia
  4. Palermo , Italy
  5. Alexandria , Egypt
  6. Cairo , Egypt (land line)
  7. Suez , Egypt (land line / end)
  8. Jeddah , Saudi Arabia
  9. Fujairah , United Arab Emirates
  10. Karachi , Pakistan
  11. Mumbai , India
  12. Colombo , Sri Lanka
  13. Chennai , India
  14. Cox's Bazar , Bangladesh
  15. Satun , Thailand
  16. Malacca , Malaysia
  17. Tuas, Singapore

Operating company

Companies country
Algerie Telecom AlgeriaAlgeria Algeria
Bharti Airtel (Bharti Infratel Limited) IndiaIndia India
Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) BangladeshBangladesh Bangladesh
CAT Telecom ThailandThailand Thailand
Etisalat United Arab EmiratesUnited Arab Emirates United Arab Emirates
MCI Communications (formerly MCI UK) United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom
Orange (formerly France Télécom) FranceFrance France
Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) PakistanPakistan Pakistan
Saudi Telecom Company (STC) Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia Saudi Arabia
Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) SingaporeSingapore Singapore
Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) Sri LankaSri Lanka Sri Lanka
Tata Communications (formerly: Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, VSNL) IndiaIndia India
Telecom Egypt (TE) EgyptEgypt Egypt
Telecom Italia ItalyItaly Italy
Telecom Malaysia MalaysiaMalaysia Malaysia
Tunisie Telecom TunisiaTunisia Tunisia

Intelligence surveillance

In August 2013, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that under the leadership of the British secret service GCHQ, with the support of the National Security Agency, access to the cable system had been achieved. The newspaper cites Edward Snowden as the source of this information. According to the news magazine Der Spiegel , the US National Security Agency (NSA) also managed to obtain information about the network management of the submarine cable system.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b NSA taps data cables from Europe to Asia , Deutsche Welle / dpa, December 29, 2013
  2. ↑ a b Alexander McLeod: SEA-ME-WE 4 Fiber Optic Submarine Cable Project . In: Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Memorial University, St. John's, NL, Canada (Ed.): Coastal and Ocean Engineering Undergraduate Student Forum, COASTAL-13 . April 2013 (English, mun.ca ).
  3. ↑ Fujitsu Completes Construction of SEA-ME-WE 4 Submarine Cable Network: 20,000 kilometers of optical submarine cable network spans from Singapore to France. Fujitsu, December 13, 2005, accessed June 1, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Mitsubishi Electric Completes Upgrade of SEA-ME-WE 4 Network. Misubishi Electric, December 18, 2015, accessed September 9, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Cable System Configuration . In: South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 . Sri Lanka Telecom. Archived from the original on August 4, 2007. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
  6. ↑ SEA-ME-WE 4 Network Administration system. Seamewe4.net, accessed on November 21, 2016 (English).
  7. ↑ British secret service siphons data from Germany . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . August 28, 2013.
  8. ↑ John Goetz, Hans Leyendecker and Frederik Obermaier (August 28, 2013). "British Officials Have Far-Reaching Access To Internet And Telephone Communications" (accessed August 30, 2013)
  9. ↑ NSA spies on data cables from Europe to Asia . In: Spiegel Online , December 29, 2013. Retrieved January 5, 2014.