Orange teams up with Google on Dunant transatlantic cable

Orange has been announced as the latest partner to join Google on its monstrous mission to bulk out its connectivity infrastructure maze.

The telco will act as the French ‘landing partner’ for Google’s Dunant transatlantic submarine cable, which is set to come into operation in 2020. As part of the partnership, Orange will provide backhaul services to Paris, while also benefiting from fibre-pairs with a capacity of more than 30 Tbps per pair.

"I am extremely proud to announce this collaboration with Google to build a new, cutting-edge cable between the USA and France," said Stéphane Richard, CEO of Orange. "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."

Announced back in July, Dunant (named after Nobel Peace Prize winner Henri Dunant) is Google’s first private investment across the Atlantic and supplements one of the busiest routes on the internet. The cable will be 6,600km long, connecting the west coast of France to North Virginia in the US. The cable is set to be the first to connect the two countries in 15 years.

While many organizations are investing in infrastructure through consortiums, Orange has invested in more than 40 submarine cables, few have taken Google’s approach in being the sole investor. It might be a more expensive approach, though Google will have more control over capacity and the route of the cable, perhaps giving it a bit of an edge over competitors. The weight of such investments have been putting some dents in the spreadsheets, the CAPEX column doubled during the latest quarterly earnings call, though it does put Google in a solid position.

From Orange’s perspective, the partnership will strengthen the telcos position to support the development of new uses for its consumer and enterprise customers in Europe and America. It will also be in a stronger position to provide services to wholesale market such as content-providers and third-party operators.