By The Financial

The FINANCIAL — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is funding Turkey’s investment in a new high-tech fibre-optic submarine communications cable system that will carry data between 17 countries, from Singapore to France and Italy.

The Bank is providing a US$ 50 million loan to Türk Telekom Group, Turkey’s largest telecommunications company, which is building the new submarine cable system in a consortium with 17 other telecommunications operators.

The financing will be used to lay cables under the sea and build a branching unit in Marmaris on the Mediterranean coast, in Mu?la Province, south-western Turkey.  Branching units are used in submarine cable systems to provide traffic and power routing between the trunk and branch cables, according to EBRD.

The US$ 700 million network, dubbed SEA-ME-WE 5 (South-East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe 5), will be approximately 20,000 kilometres long and is expected to become operational in late 2016, connecting South-East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Europe.

The cable’s design capacity is 24 terabits per second on three fibre pairs. Once completed, its advanced 100 Gbps1 technology is expected to meet the rapid growth in demand for fast internet traffic between Europe and Asia.

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