en.Wedoany.com Reported - Irish submarine cable operator EllaLink and the Mauritanian government jointly announced on May 4, 2026, the successful completion of the landing engineering for a new submarine cable branch in Nouadhibou, Mauritania. This marks the country's second submarine fiber optic cable channel directly connecting to Europe and international digital hubs, following the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable system, providing Mauritania with a diversified international connectivity backup path.
The cooperation between EllaLink and Mauritania's Ministry of Digital Transformation and Administrative Modernization began in July 2025, when both parties signed an agreement to extend a branch from the EllaLink transatlantic trunk system to Nouadhibou. After approximately ten months of construction, this branch cable officially landed, completed under the direct supervision of Ahmed Salem Bedda, Minister of Digital Transformation and Administrative Modernization of Mauritania.
Extending over 670 kilometers from the EllaLink trunk, this branch is equipped with two fiber pairs, utilizing advanced fiber optic technology to provide initial multi-gigabit connectivity, scalable on demand to multi-terabit capacity. The EllaLink trunk system itself spans a total length of 9,200 kilometers, connecting Europe and Latin America, designed with 4 fiber pairs and a total design capacity of 72 terabits per second. The connection of the new branch provides Mauritania with a direct, low-latency interconnection channel to Europe, significantly enhancing the country's international bandwidth supply capacity. The Mauritanian government is actively advancing its national digital transformation agenda, having already built approximately 4,000 kilometers of national fiber backbone network and published a National Artificial Intelligence Strategy. The completion of the EllaLink branch further strengthens the redundancy of the country's international digital infrastructure.
In Nouadhibou, EllaLink has built a new neutral cable landing station, supporting Mauritanian local operators in accessing this infrastructure via two different routes. This not only enhances network resilience but also provides fair physical access conditions for multiple operators to compete. The landing station had already reached 46% construction progress by March 2026. Following this branch landing, subsequent work continues to advance, with full commercial service expected to commence in the first quarter of 2027.
Mauritania's existing international submarine cable connectivity had long relied on the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) system, completed in 2012. Over the past few years, the ACE system has experienced multiple faults and outages, leading to widespread communication service disruptions in the country. EllaLink's connection breaks this single-route dependency, providing a second international submarine fiber optic cable connection.
This Mauritanian branch represents a further expansion for EllaLink on the African continent. EllaLink currently operates a high-capacity submarine fiber optic cable system connecting Europe and Latin America, and its extension into Africa marks its strategic progression from a transatlantic trunk operator to a multi-regional digital infrastructure provider. The Mauritanian government has integrated this cooperation into the overall framework of its national digital transformation agenda. The country has already built approximately 4,000 kilometers of national fiber backbone network and published the "National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2025-2029." The completion of the EllaLink branch further strengthens the redundancy of the country's international digital infrastructure, offering operators, enterprises, and public sector users a cost-optimizable direct connection option to Europe.
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