PCCW Global Selects Interxion Marseille for PEACE Subsea Cable Landing Station

PCCW Global's Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) submarine cable will contract Interxion's MRS2 data center to architect its landing station.

PCCW announced last week that its Cable will use the MRS2 data center instead of a traditional landing station for its termination and connectivity equipment.

"Selecting the right data center in Europe for the PEACE submarine cable link is a critical component for the commercial success of the project. We know that we have made the right strategic decision with Interxion ", adds Sun Xiaohua, COO of PEACE Cable International Network Co. Ltd.

The PEACE cable is 15,000 km long and has a transmission capacity of 16 Tbit / s per fiber pair. It runs from Pakistan to Kenya and south to the Seychelles to land in South Africa, and then north across the Mediterranean to France. . Development began in 2017 and aims to provide a low-latency route from Asia to Africa and Europe, landing in Pakistan, Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya and France. The cable will be launched for commercial use in 2021.

Marseille is an important location for Europe's submarine cable

Marseille is strategically located on the Mediterranean Sea in southern France and is becoming an increasingly important interconnection point in Europe. The region has direct access to 14 submarine cables (PEACE will be the 15th) connecting cloud and digital media users in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

"This collaboration with PEACE and PCCW Global not only solidifies Marseille's future as an intercontinental hub with access to state-of-the-art communications services, but also enables the entry of Interxion's global customer base into new markets and the ability to connect The often geographically dispersed infrastructure in close proximity to the community connected through PlatformDIGITAL, " said Mike Hollands, senior director of market development at Interxion.

"PEACE Cable is well positioned to handle the increasing data and video traffic between Europe, Africa and Asia. This allows companies to expand their global workflows and efficiently implement their digital transformation strategies."

Interaxion, owned by Digital Reality, has three data centers in Marseille. The most recent facility opened in July 2020 a former Nazi World War II submarine base. MRS2, where the PEACE cable will land, is a 47,360 facility. 4,400 square feet with a maximum carrying capacity of 7 MW, built in former ship workshops in the city's industrial port area and opened in 2018. Digital Reality bought Interxion, then Europe's largest colocation provider. in 2019 for $8.4 billion.