BRICS Cable to be ready in 2014 linking Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa

A strategic project for the social and economic benefit of the BRICS countries will be launched in 2014. The BRICS Cable is a 34,000 km, 2 fibre pair, 12.8 Tbit/s capacity, fibre optic cable system. It will interconnect with the WACS cable on the West coast of Africa, and the EASSY and SEACOM cables on the East coast of the continent.

It will link Russia, China, India, South Africa, Brazil and the United States. This will give the BRICS countries access to 21 African countries and give those African countries access to the BRICS economies.

Few months after the admission of South Africa into the BRICS economic bloc, the BRICS Cable has been in the planning and feasibility stages since March 2011. The traffic and feasibility studies carried out have demonstrated the project's commercial viability, showing a reasonable Internal Rate of Return (IRR) for this kind of project.

Axiom and Terabit Consulting, two consulting firms in the submarine cable industry, carried out the market, traffic and commercial feasibility, while Alcatel-Lucent carried out the technical feasibility. They are now in the process of inviting telecom operators and other potential investors in the BRICS countries and the USA to participate in the project.