Mauritius–Rodrigues Submarine Cable: Enhancing Internet Access and Infrastructure

The Mauritius-Rodrigues Submarine Cable is a game-changer for internet access in the region.

This underwater cable connects the island of Mauritius to Rodrigues, reducing latency and increasing internet speeds.

The cable is approximately 1,200 kilometers long, spanning across the Indian Ocean.

This infrastructure upgrade is expected to boost economic growth and improve communication between the two islands.

Take a look at this: Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius Limited

The Mauritius-Rodrigues Submarine Cable is a game-changer for the island of Rodrigues. It's the first optical fiber submarine communications cable linking Mauritius to Rodrigues.

The cable was commissioned in November 2017 by the Government of Mauritius. Mauritius Telecom was awarded the project and executed it with the help of PCCW Global and Huawei Marine.

The MARS submarine cable has a design capacity of 8 Terabits per second. This is a significant improvement from the initial lit capacity of 100 Gigabits per second.

The cable was laid out using a no-burial laying methodology. It consists of two fibre pairs and six submarine repeaters using the dense wavelength division multiplexing transmission technology.

The laying of the submarine cable started on November 6, 2018, at La Prairie, Mauritius. It was connected to Rodrigues on November 17, 2018.

Here's a quick rundown of the cable's specs:

Mauritius has made significant strides in bridging the urban-rural digital divide, with fiber connectivity and mobile coverage reaching even small villages.

The island's relatively small size of ~2,040 km² has allowed the same infrastructure to cover both cities and rural settlements. Fiber-to-the-home lines pass nearly all households, whether in cities or countryside.

In 2017, an island-wide rollout of fiber connectivity was completed, ensuring that rural areas are not left behind. Mobile base stations are distributed such that 2G/3G/4G signals cover practically all inhabited zones.

However, challenges in rural areas are more about adoption and affordability than availability. Some remote communities have been slower to adopt home internet, even when the infrastructure exists.

The government's free Wi-Fi hotspot project, Wi-Fi Mauritius, has helped to encourage internet use in rural villages by providing free access in community centers and public areas. This has introduced many to the online world and helped drive up digital literacy outside the cities.

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Prior to 2019, Rodrigues Island relied on satellite links, resulting in slower speeds and higher costs for its 40,000 residents. The launch of the MARS submarine cable in 2019 changed this dramatically, providing a high-speed fiber connection to Mauritius and the global internet.

The 700km submarine cable has a design capacity of 16Tbit/s and was constructed by Huawei Marine in partnership with PCCW Global. The cable was designed to cater for increased bandwidth demand of Rodrigues residents and business enterprises over the next 25 years.

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