Mauritius Telecom will be able to access the new IOX submarine fibre optic system, the first open subsea cable connecting Mauritius and the Island of Rodrigues to South Africa and India.

With the access, Mauritius Telecom said it can improve its data capabilities and the quality of its telecoms services.

The IOX cable system is expected to be commissioned in 2019 and will span more than 8,850km, providing an ultimate design capacity of over 13Tbps per fibre pair.

IOX believes that the deployment of the IOX Cable System will increase the availability of ultra-high speed broadband services, and will "reinforce Mauritius as a communication hub in sub-Saharan Africa".

In a statement, IOX Cable said the cable system, combined with IOX Cable's integrated service offerings, "will provide seamless interconnection to existing and future fibre optic submarine cable systems off the east coast of Africa and India, as well as connectivity to America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific."

"IOX is committed to delivering its end-users with advanced infrastructures that incorporate technology innovations," said Arunachalam Kandasamy, founder and CEO of IOX Cable Ltd.

IOX signed an agreement with Alcatel Submarine Networks for the installation.

"Leveraging ASN's state-of-the-art technologies we will be able to continue to support and drive broadband infrastructure development based on new socio-economic models centred around the new digital economy."

When completed, the IOX Cable System will be the fourth fiber optic submarine cable to which Mauritius will be connected.

The country is already connected to the Lower Indian Ocean Network (LION) and South Africa Far East (SAFE) cables. It is also connecting to the Melting Pot Indianoceanic Submarine System (METISS) – the initiative under the umbrella consortium comprising Mauritian operators, Reunion Island and Madagascar.