South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5) is an optical fibre submarine communications cable system that carries telecommunications between Singapore and France.
The cable is approximately 20,000 kilometres long and provides broadband communications with a design capacity of 24 Tbit/s (over 3 fiber pairs) between South East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Europe.
The portion from France to Sri Lanka was constructed by Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (ASN) and the portion from Sri Lanka to Singapore by NEC. Construction commenced on 6 June 2014 and completed in December 2016. An official launch event was held in Honolulu, Hawaii on 16 January 2017.
The design capacity was upgraded from 24 Tbit/s to 36.6 Tbit/s in September 2019 using Ciena's GeoMesh Extreme 300G technology.
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Incidents
November 2022
In November 2022, it was reported that SEA-ME-WE 5 was damaged on land near one of its landing stations in Egypt. This caused significant traffic disruptions lasting several hours to many countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
April 2024
In April 2024, the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable developed a fault in the Strait of Malacca due to water penetrating the insulation of the cable, causing a short circuit which led to a complete loss of communication. As a result, connectivity was lost between Kuakata, Bangladesh and the final landing point in Tuas, Singapore. The fault led to Bangladesh losing 1.7 Tbps of international capacity, reducing the country’s internet capacity by approximately a third.
The cable was reported to have been repaired on June 28, following lengthy delays related to Indonesia's preferential cabotage policy and administrative procedures.