SAT-3/WASC (cable system)
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[edit] Overview
SAT-3/WASC or South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable is a submarine communications cable linking Portugal and Spain to South Africa, with connections to several West African countries along the route. It forms part of the SAT-3/WASC/SAFE cable system, where the SAFE cable links South Africa to Asia. The SAT-3/WASC/SAFE system provides a path between Asia and Europe for telecommunications traffic that is an alternative to the cable routes that pass through the Middle East, such as SEA-ME-WE 3 and FLAG.
The SAT-3 system together with SAFE was built by a consortium of operators that currently has 36 shareholders in all. The SAT-3/WASC portion of the system has 11 African shareholders: Angola Telecom, Camtel, Cote d'Ivoire Telecom, Ghana Telecom, Maroc Telecom, Nitel, OPT Benin, OPT Gabon, Sonatel, Telecom Namibia and Telkom South Africa. SAT-3 has landing points in:
1. Sesimbra, Portugal
2. Chipiona, Spain (though this landing is considered to be part of the Telefonica domestic network)
3. Altavista, Gran Canaria, Spain
and in Africa:
4. Dakar, Senegal
5. Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
6. Accra, Ghana
7. Cotonou, Benin
8. Lagos, Nigeria
9. Douala, Cameroon
10. Libreville, Gabon
11. Cacuaco, Angola
12. Melkbosstrand, South Africa meeting SAFE
[edit] Technology
The cable itself consists of four fibers, using Erbium-doped fiber amplifier repeaters and wavelength division multiplexing.
[edit] History
SAT-3 began operations in 2001, taking up service from SAT-2 which was reaching maximum capacity. SAT-2 had been brought into service in the early 1990s as a replacement for the original undersea cable SAT-1 which was constructed in the 1960s.
