Submarine cable WACS (West Africa Cable System)
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Awards for Outstanding Performance
Technology & capacity
WACS was built by ASN and has four fiber pairs with different routing configurations. A capacity upgrade in December 2015 by Huawei Marine increased the total capacity to 14.5 Tbit/s.
- 4 fiber pairs with distinct routing profiles: Express (FP1), Semi-Express (FP2/FP3) and Omnibus (FP4)
- 14.5 Tbit/s after 100G upgrade: Huawei Marine Soft Decision FEC, December 2015
- 236 Underwater optical amplifiers: seamless signal amplification over the entire route
- Two independent power rings: Redundant power supply at approx. 12,000 V DC
Provider Overview
SAVECALL as access to WACS
WACS is often the only or the best cable option for companies with locations in Angola, the Congo region and along the entire West African coast. The 12-member consortium with MTN, Vodacom, Angola Cables and Tata makes the capacity structure complex. Those without direct partnerships end up with the wrong provider at the wrong price. SAVECALL knows the consortium partners, the four fiber pair configurations and the routing differences between express and omnibus capacity on this system. We negotiate directly, benchmark transparently and deliver solutions that work even with difficult routing requirements.
The result for our customers:
- Direct capacity access to WACS without reseller chains
- Negotiation of IRU structures and leased capacity models
- Transparent price benchmarking against all available alternatives
- True route diversity through independent redundancy planning
- Clear SLAs and ongoing capacity management
Customers
Why
Telecom & IT sourcing. Worldwide. Carrier-independent.
Selection & operation of worldwide connectivity & cloud infrastructure. Without vendor risk & unnecessary costs.
- 80+ carriers worldwide
- One point of contact
- One SLA
- One portal: mySAVECALL
- Min. 20% savings
25+
years of experience
40+
Employees
80+
Partner
1400+ Clients
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Frequently asked questions about the WACS cable
The WACS cable connects South Africa with Europe along the entire West African coast. It lands in 15 countries, including Namibia, Angola, DR Congo, Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Cape Verde, with endpoints in Portugal and the UK. For several of these countries, WACS was the first direct link to the global submarine cable network.
WACS has a design capacity of 14.5 Tbit/s across four fiber pairs. The system was built by the manufacturer ASN and upgraded to 100G wavelengths through Huawei Marine upgrades in 2015 and 2019. The four fiber pairs carry different routing profiles (Express, Semi-Express and Omnibus), so both direct connections and links to individual landing points can be provisioned.
WACS is operated by a consortium of twelve carriers, including MTN, Vodacom, Angola Cables and Tata Communications. The system was built by the manufacturer ASN (Alcatel Submarine Networks). This consortium structure makes capacity access complex, which is why direct contracts and market knowledge across the partners are decisive.
It depends on location, capacity needs and redundancy strategy. WACS offers the broadest reach across West and Central Africa, Equiano the highest capacity with modern SDM technology and ACE reaches the most countries along the coast. SAVECALL compares the options vendor-neutrally and sources the cable that fits your network best, both commercially and technically.
Like any single submarine cable, WACS is vulnerable to disruptions. In August 2023, WACS failed together with SAT-3 after a rockfall in the Congo Canyon, and in March 2024 a quadruple outage (WACS, ACE, MainOne, SAT-3) cut connectivity for around ten African countries. True resilience only comes from physically separate routes, which is why SAVECALL plans redundancy deliberately across multiple cable systems.
Companies get capacity on WACS through direct wholesale partnerships with the consortium members, not through reseller chains. SAVECALL negotiates IRU structures and leased capacity models directly, benchmarks pricing transparently against all alternatives and plans redundancy at the same time. The easiest starting point is a free consultation in which we review location, bandwidth needs and routing.
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