Houda-Imane Faraoun, Algeria’s minister of post, telecommunications, technology and digital has inaugurated its ORVAL subsea cable.
The 1,160km system connecting Algiers and Oran in Algeria to Valencia, Spain will deliver 40Tbps of capacity and create more connectivity options for the country.
According to during her appearance on national radio station channel 3, Faraoun said "This new achievement will guarantee a better connection for all Algerians", adding that "the national network will always be connected to the world".
She went on to say, "this 100% Algerian infrastructure will be operated in its entirety by the national public operator, through Algérie Télécom in Algeria and Algérie Télécom Europe in Spain".
On the topic of the delay in the system, that was previously due to go live at the end of 2018, Faraoun explained that this was down to “the multiple problems in the conduct and management of the works of the cable landing station " as well as administrative legal and organizational constraints.
The project was a joint collaboration with Algerie Telecom, IslaLink and ASN.
Earlier this year, the country launched its Medex cable connecting to international data markets through an interconnection with TE North/TGN-Eurasia/SEACOM/Alexandros, a 3,634km cable system that lands in Abu Talat, Egypt; Marseille, France; Pentaskhinos, Cyprusa nd now Annaba, Algeria. Medex was built and installed by Alcatel-Lucent, the branch cable has a total length of 184km.
The entire system is consortium led, owned by Telecom Egypt, Cyta, SEACOM, Tata Communications and now PCCW Global and Algerie Telecom.
Source: https://www.capacitymedia.com/articles/3824686/algeria-goes-live-with-orval-subsea-cable