Submarine cable WACS (West Africa Cable System)

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The invisible infrastructure of global connectivity

The West Africa Cable System (WACS) is one of the most important submarine cable systems along the West African coast. With 14 land stations in 15 countries and a length of 14,530 kilometers, it connects South Africa with Europe along the entire west coast of the continent. Four dedicated fiber pairs with different routing profiles enable both direct connections and omnibus-style circuits to each individual landing point. When it went live in May 2012, WACS increased South Africa’s international bandwidth capacity by over 40 percent. Today, following a Huawei Marine upgrade, the system offers up to 14.5 Tbit/s capacity with 100G wavelengths.

Route & connection

WACS runs from Yzerfontein (South Africa) along the West African coast northwards via Swakopmund (Namibia), Luanda (Angola), Muanda (DR Congo), Pointe-Noire (Republic of Congo), Limbe (Cameroon), Lagos (Nigeria), Lomé (Togo), Accra (Ghana), Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Praia (Cape Verde) and Las Palmas (Canary Islands) to Sesimbra (Portugal) and Highbridge (UK). The total length of the cable system is 14,530 kilometers.

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Awards for Outstanding Performance

WACS submarine cable

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

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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: