Orange, Google partner on a new submarine cable across the Atlantic Ocean

Orange is collaborating with Google on its 6,600km Dunant submarine cable connecting the United States to the French Atlantic coast, which aims to launch services late 2020.

The Atlantic is home to one of the world's busiest submarine cable routes with a need for connectivity that increases by a factor of two every two years. Dunant will help address the huge demand for data flows and provide quicker and more efficient connections for both Orange and Google customers.

As the French landing partner, Orange will build and operate the landing station on the French Atlantic coast and provide the backhaul service to Paris. In parallel, Orange will benefit from fiber-pairs with a capacity of more than 30Tbp/s per pair — enough to transfer a 1GB movie in 30 microseconds. This will enable Orange to boost its capacity to meet massive growth in data and content demands between Europe and the U.S for several years.

Thanks to this partnership, Orange will be is a stronger position to support the development of new uses for its consumer and enterprise customers in Europe and America. This will also reinforce its international leadership position on the wholesale market with respect to content-providers and third-party operators.

Dunant will be the first new submarine cable connecting the United States to France in more than 15 years and will be designed to combine the most advanced technologies from different global equipment providers. This will enable the cable to easily and rapidly increase its bandwidth, evolve at the same pace as innovation in optical transmission technology and maintain its high-level performance over the years to come.

Orange, a leading player in the submarine cable market

As a major investor in more than 40 submarine cables, Orange is working to develop the quality of its global network service. Its participation in this trans-Atlantic project is one facet of the Group’s ambition to offer enriched, high-quality connectivity to its customers that meet their expectations.

Commenting on the collaboration, Stéphane Richard, Chairman and CEO of Orange, said: “I am extremely proud to announce this collaboration with Google to build a new, cutting-edge cable between the USA and France. The role of submarine cables is often overlooked, despite their central role at the heart of our digital world. I am proud that Orange continues to be a global leader in investing, deploying, maintaining and managing such key infrastructure. Google is a major partner for Orange and this project reflects the spirit of our relationship.”