Construction of a high-speed submarine cable connecting France to Singapore via Djibouti and Egypt in Africa will be co-financed by telecoms giant Orange.

The 20,000 km Sea-Me-We 5, which stands for South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 5, is planned to connect Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka, India, Pakistan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy and France.

Orange is a member of an international consortium building the network, which is expected to come online at the end of 2016.

Development of Sea-Me-We 5 also follows on from the establishment of Sea-Me-We 3 in 1999, Sea-Me-We 4 in 2005 and IMeWe in 2010.

Orange co-owns these three other submarine cables as well.

“In addition to providing extra capacity, the Sea-Me-We 5 cable provides Orange with an alternative route that guarantees the protection of voice and data traffic passing through the other cables in the area,” said Orange in a press statement released last week.

“Moreover, thanks to the inter-connection point in Djibouti, Orange can open up a new route towards the Indian Ocean to support the booming growth of broadband services in the islands of Reunion and Mayotte,” said Orange.

The Sea-Me-We 5 cable design is based on 100 Gbps technology and is expected to offer a capacity of 24 Tbps, according to Orange.

Orange’s move to co-finance Sea-Me-We 5 also follows on the French telecom operator’s announcement last week that it has opened West Africa’s first large-capacity internet protocol (IP) Point of Presence (PoP) in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Orange is also part of a consortium that has built the $700 million Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable, which links Europe to Africa’s West Coast.